


Color War

by eternaleponine



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Clexa Week 2019, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Masturbation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2019-11-08 05:44:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17975546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: Clarke has been coming to Camp Arkadia since she was 8 years old.  Now 18, she is finally a counselor, and can't wait to meet her cabin of campers.  Before that happens, though, she runs into the one thing she doesn't love about camp: Lexa Woods.  Is it ridiculous to hold a grudge against someone for a decade because they wouldn't let you have the top bunk?  Okay, fine, maybe.  But that was just the beginning, and anyway, the feeling is mutual.  Right?





	1. Chapter 1

Every year since she was eight years old, Clarke had spent the summer at Camp Arkadia. It had started because her parents were volunteering to do relief work in a country that had been devastated by a hurricane and hadn't been able to bring her along, and when she'd come home full of stories about the fun she'd had and the friends she'd made, it had become a tradition. She went to camp and her parents traveled to somewhere where their skills as a doctor and an engineer could be put to good use. She'd felt a pang of guilt when she'd reached an age where she would have been allowed to accompany them, but the idea of not going to camp was even more unsettling. Instead she'd made sure to put in more than the required number of volunteer hours to graduate ( _a lot_ more, to make up for those who only just did the bare minimum, and probably lied about half of them), and when there was an opportunity to do a service project at camp, which usually happened at least once a summer, she was the first to sign up.

Clarke loved camp. She loved the fresh air and the hikes (at least the ones that didn't involve actual mountains) and swimming in the lake and sunset canoe paddles and campfire singalongs and bug juice and arts and crafts and movies in the rec hall on rainy days. She loved getting to see friends who she only ever got to interact with through her phone or computer during the rest of the year and getting to indoctrinate newcomers into the wonders of camp life. She'd been thrilled when she'd finally been old enough to become a junior counselor, and she'd been lucky enough to be paired with counselors who embraced her enthusiasm and didn't just brush her off as an annoyance. 

Now she was eighteen, fresh out of high school, and on her own as a counselor of the first time. She was nervous, because she would be responsible for the safety and well-being of not only the girls assigned to her cabin, but for all the kids attending, whether they were there for a week or the entire summer. But she was also excited, because what better preparation was there than a lifetime of her own camp experiences? 

She parked her car in the out-of-the-way lot reserved for the staff and left everything but a small backpack behind, figuring there was no point in lugging it around until she knew which cabin she would be in. She headed for the staff cabin to check in, yanking open the door with a little more zeal than was necessary, and immediately collided with someone who was on their way out. There was enough force in the impact to rock Clarke back a step... which put her heel over the edge of the actual step, and she went sprawling into the dirt and leaves. 

"Shiii—oot," she grumbled, sitting up. There were no campers around, but she needed to get in the habit of not swearing now. She looked up to see who she had bounced off of, and barely managed to suppress a sneer. 

There was only one thing that Clarke _didn't_ love about Camp Arkadia, and here she was. Looming over Clarke, and although her hand was out like she was offering to help her up, Clarke knew better. If she reached for it, it would be yanked away like Charlie Brown and the football. She clambered to her feet on her own, brushing herself off before giving the girl her best fake smile. "Lexa. Imagine running into you here."

A muscle twitched in Lexa's face, like she wanted to smile but wouldn't let herself. Probably trying not to smirk at Clarke's fall, not because she cared but because it was impolite to laugh at someone else's misfortune, no matter how much you disliked them. "No pun intended," Lexa said. 

"Of course not," Clarke replied, although the pun had obviously been intended, not as a joke but as a jibe. As in, 'Watch where you're going, you self-centered brat.' 

"You're here for the summer?" Lexa asked. 

_Same as I have been every summer,_ Clarke thought. _Were you hoping I wouldn't be? Because I was sure as hell hoping you wouldn't._ "Just going to get my cabin assignment," Clarke said brightly.

"I just got mine," Lexa said. "Robin." 

_As if I care,_ Clarke thought. She knew that Lexa was only saying it to rub in the fact that she'd gotten here earlier than Clarke. Again. She was probably loving the fact that her cabin was named after the first bird of spring, and the early bird gets the worm and all that. Was that considered irony? Or just a stupid coincidence? "Great," Clarke said. "I guess I'll see you around."

"I look forward to it," Lexa replied, meaning the opposite. She sauntered off, leaving Clarke in her wake, fuming. 

Neither of them had ever looked forward to seeing the other around. Not since that very first summer, when they'd been assigned to the same cabin and Lexa had gotten the last top bunk, leaving Clarke stuck with the one underneath her. When Clarke had very politely asked if she would switch, she hadn't even considered it. 'I got here first,' had been Lexa's argument, and she'd refused to budge. From there, the animosity had only grown, and every year Clarke hoped that maybe, just this once, she would get lucky and Lexa wouldn't show up. So far, it hadn't happened. The only stroke of luck they'd had was that they'd never ended up in a cabin together again. 

She stepped into the staff cabin for the first time and was immediately engulfed in a pair of arms. "Clarke! Welcome home!" She was pushed back gently so that the camp director, who everyone called Aunt Hannah (camp tradition – all counselors were Aunt or Uncle) could look her up and down. "I'm so happy to have you here," she said. 

"I'm so happy to be here," Clarke said. 

"Already becoming one with nature, I see," Aunt Hannah said, plucking a leaf from Clarke's hair with a laugh. 

Clarke laughed too, but inside she was seething. Why hadn't Lexa told her? Surely she'd seen it. But it was a question that answered itself. Lexa hadn't said anything, because even if she _had_ noticed, she would rather Clarke walk around looking like an idiot than to do or say anything that might benefit her in even the tiniest way. "So... cabin assignment?"

Aunt Hannah went back to the little desk where she had a laptop set up. She must have had an actual wired connection to the internet, because there was no Wi-Fi out here, and cell service was spotty at best. Campers were required to turn in their cell phones when they arrived, and were only allowed to have them back for a few hours once a week, to call parents, text friends on the outside, and get caught up on whatever celebrity nonsense was happening out in the so-called real world. Counselors were allowed to have their phones in case of emergencies, but mostly they relied on the walkie-talkies that they were issued to communicate with one another. 

She tapped on the keyboard and turned back to Clarke. "I've got you as Arts and Crafts and Counselor-at-Large," she said. When Aunt Hannah's smile slipped, Clarke knew she hadn't been able to keep her disappointment from her face. There was nothing _wrong_ with being a counselor-at-large – meaning she lived in the staff cabin and was responsible for monitoring all of the campers during activities – but it felt like a slap in the face. Like despite everything she'd done, all the years she'd been here and the hard work she'd put in as a junior counselor, she still wasn't good enough to be trusted with a cabin of campers of her own. 

And Lexa was. 

"I thought since it was your first year, and I know you love art..." Aunt Hannah started, but her voice trailed off. "I'm sorry, Clarke," she said. 

"It's fine," Clarke said, pasting on a smile. "It'll be fun." 

"That's the spirit," Aunt Hannah said. "Do you want me to show you to the room where you'll be staying? You'll be sharing with a few of the other ladies, and it's a little snug, but—" She kept talking, but Clarke stopped listening. This wasn't what she wanted. This wasn't why she was here. She was supposed to be wrangling girls into and out of bed, settling disputes over whose turn it was in the bathroom, offering tissues and hugs to homesick hearts, not helping kids twist plastic string into lanyards that would eventually just end up in the garbage because what the hell were you supposed to do with them, anyway? 

She told herself to get over it. She told herself it would be fine. 

But how could it be, when she would have to look at Lexa's stupid, smug face all damn summer, doing all the things Clarke had been denied?

* * *

Staying in the staff cabin might not be _all_ bad, Clarke decided, when her friend Octavia showed up, grinning ear-to-ear as she tossed her bag onto the bunk above Clarke's and threw her arms around her. Octavia had been coming to camp for nearly as long as Clarke had, and getting to see her was one of the things she looked forward to most. 

"I thought you were going to be a cabin counselor," Octavia said, then held up her hands at the expression on Clarke's face. "Oops, sorry, sore subject, obviously." She punched Clarke's arm lightly. "Cheer up," she said. "You get a share a room with me, so you know it's going to be an awesome summer." 

"As if you're going to be spending any time in here at all," Clarke said. She'd already seen Lincoln, Octavia's summer-fling-turned-serious-like-practically-engaged-serious boyfriend wandering around, and she knew that Octavia would take any and every opportunity she got to sneak off with him. She was serious about her job, but once the playing fields were cleared and the kids tucked safely away for the night, she considered herself off-duty and therefore free to do as she pleased, rules be damned. It drove Clarke crazy a lot of the time, but sometimes she couldn't help wishing she could be just a little more like her friend, and a little less like, well, herself.

Octavia shrugged and grinned. "I'll have to sleep _sometimes_ ," she said. "Who knows? Maybe you'll get lucky and meet someone this summer. I saw a couple of new guys that are pretty cute." 

Clarke shrugged. "That's not why I'm here," she said. 

"Yeah, I know," Octavia said. "I'm just saying... all work and no play makes Clarke a dull girl." 

Clarke grabbed her pillow and swatted at her with it, and Octavia retaliated, so when one of their other two bunkmates came in they were gasping with laughter, red-cheeked and hair in disarray from thwapping each other over the head. 

"Am I interrupting?" Anya asked. She'd been working at the camp for the last few years and had become the new head of the Recreation team when her predecessor had finally retired at the end of last summer. Her specialty was teaching archery, which meant she had to have nerves of steel. There was no way Clarke would put herself within a hundred feet of kids with bows and arrows. Octavia would be reporting to her this summer, and Clarke hoped for all of their sakes that they got along. 

"Nope," Octavia said, flopping down on Clarke's bed. "I was just trouncing Clarke in a pillow fight." 

Anya smirked. "I like your style," she said. "I wonder if I can convince Aunt Hannah that a pillow fight would be a good Color War event..." 

"Oh my god that would be awesome," Octavia said, launching herself up again and over to Anya to discuss other ideas she had. Clarke had no doubt that she'd been coming up with ideas for the last several months.

"Just remember," Clarke said, "they're kids, not Ninja Warriors." 

Octavia stuck out her tongue. "Why can't they be both?" she asked. 

Their fourth bunkmate arrived just before dinner, taking the bottom bunk under Anya. Her name was Luna, and she was the head lifeguard and responsible for most water-based activities. She was usually soft-spoken, but she was a stickler about water safety, so if you wanted to get anywhere near the beach, it was in your best interests not to cross her. 

"Hey," Clarke said. "Welcome back."

"Thank you," she said. "You too." And that was it, as she turned her attention to unpacking.

Dinner that night was pizza, ordered in as a special treat before they settled into weeks of mass-produced camp food (which meant the same menu week after week, pretty much, although the kitchen staff did try to mix it up a little bit so the full summer campers didn't complain). While they ate, they had their first staff meeting of the summer, after which they were free to do what they wanted until curfew, because yes, there was one of those, adults or not. 

"Campfire in the girls' cabin area," Lexa announced as they started to break up. "We've got all the fixings for s'mores."

_Of course you do,_ Clarke thought. _Probably raided from the kitchen, but you'll take the credit._ She hoped someone else would suggest something – anything – else, but even Octavia and Lincoln seemed keen on the idea, so Clarke allowed herself to be dragged along, with a quick stop back at the staff cabin to grab her guitar. 

The fire had reached the right size and heat for toasting marshmallows when they arrived, and Clarke quickly found herself a perfect marshmallow stick to skewer some on. She held them close, but not too close, to the embers, turning them slowly to make sure that they were a perfect golden brown all the way around. Most people seemed to think that lighting the marshmallow on fire and blowing it out was an acceptable method of marshmallow preparation, so after a few minutes they were already assembling s'mores, leaving Clarke as the last person still kneeling beside the fire.

Except when she looked up through the flames, she realized she wasn't the only one. Directly across from her, another person crouched, intent on achieving the same perfect result. 

_Lexa._

In the split-second Clarke's attention wavered, her marshmallows got too close to the fire, and she had to yank them out and quickly blow out the lick of flame that curled from one of the edges. "Damn it," she hissed, casting a glare in Lexa's direction. Maybe it was just the way the shadows shifted, but she was pretty sure Lexa was smirking, like this had been a contest and she'd won. She pushed herself up in annoyance, going to get graham crackers and chocolate, hoping that they would cover up the slight carbon taste. 

She did better on her second batch because she didn't let herself get distracted, and then she got out her guitar, quickly tuning it as people started peppering her with requests. She smiled, nodded, and put her fingers to the strings.

* * *

"Hey Clarke?" 

They were back in their room, tucked into their bunks with the lights out, but from the amount of shifting and shuffling noises that cut through the dark, none of them were asleep yet. They should have been; in less than twelve hours this place would be flooded with kids. But that was also why they weren't. 

Apparently Octavia had decided that there was no point in pretending.

"Yeah?"

"This is going to sound crazy but hear me out." 

Clarke rolled her eyes and considered shoving her foot between the slats of the bedframe to poke Octavia in the back. "What?" she grumbled, sure she didn't want to hear whatever was coming. 

"Have you ever stopped to think that maybe you don't _actually_ hate Lexa? You _say_ you do, maybe you even _think_ you do, but in reality it's pent up sexual frustration, and what you _really_ want is her tongue down your throat and her hand down your pants. Has that thought ever occurred to you?"

Clarke heard Anya snort, even though she tried to cover it up with a cough, and Clarke jammed her foot up into Octavia's back hard enough to make the bed rattle. Rather than annoying her so-called friend, though, it just made her laugh. 

"Just a little food for thought," Octavia said. "Considering you spent the entire night eye-fucking her."

"You're delusional," Clarke snapped. "I wasn't even looking at her." She'd maybe glanced her direction a few times, but that was inevitable when everyone was sitting in a circle, more-or-less. They might have even made eye contact once or twice, when Clarke caught Lexa glaring at her, but what Octavia was implying was absolutely ridiculous, and obnoxious to boot. 

"Uh-huh," Octavia said. "Sure."

"And I don't hate her," Clarke said. "We're not friends, but hate implies that I feel strongly about her, when really I don't think about her at all." _If I can avoid it. Which will be much easier when we have campers and are too busy to think about anything other than making sure they're safe and happy._

Octavia laughed. "And you're calling _me_ delusional?" She leaned over the side of the bunk to look at Clarke. "You have had a hate-on for Lexa since you were a kid."

Clarke yanked her pillow out from under her head to hit Octavia with it, but she had pulled herself back up into her bunk before she could swing it. "Even if I did, it's not as if the feeling isn't mutual," Clarke said. 

This time it was Luna who made a sound, of disgust or disapproval or something close enough to those to get Clarke's hackles up. "Both of you like putting thoughts in other people's heads," she said. "It's not a good way to go through life."

"Thanks, Yoda," Octavia said. 

"Okay," Anya said, her tone quiet but firm, the kind of voice that got kids to shut up and listen. "We should all be sleeping right now, so why don't we try to do that?"

"Thanks, Mom," Octavia grumbled, but quietly, so only Clarke could hear. Under other circumstances, Clarke would have laughed, but she wasn't ready to forgive Octavia yet for her stupid, unfounded accusations. So she just rolled over and buried her face in her pillow, squeezing her eyes shut and willing her mind to shut down so she could sleep.

Except now she was more awake than ever. Octavia and her stupid big mouth. Clarke didn't like Lexa, but she didn't _hate_ her, either. It wasn't like she wished her ill... just that she would find somewhere else to spend her summers. And she sure as hell didn't want, as Octavia had so crassly put it, her tongue down her throat or her hand down her pants. The thought of kissing Lexa...

_Shit._

Once she'd thought it, she couldn't unthink it, and it unspooled like an old-fashioned film reel in her head. Lexa's eyes, the color of a blue spruce, slowly sliding shut, the tip of her nose brushing Clarke's as she tilted her head, her full lips pressing against Clarke's softly as they found how their mouths fit together, parting as Clarke traced her tongue...

_Stop!_ Clarke squeezed her eyes shut, balled her hands into fists, tensed her whole body until it ached and then released it, bit by bit, forcing herself to relax, banishing the thought of Lexa's long fingers in her hair, skimming her sides, cupping her breasts, cradling her hips, fingertips slipping under elastic and—

Clarke froze, listening to the sounds of her cabinmates' breathing, slow steady inhales and exhales, until she was sure that they were asleep, and then she gave in.

\--down, stroking and circling, deep and deeper still, gentle and then not so gentle, and Clarke buried her face in Lexa's shoulder (really her pillow but she had departed reality the minute she'd started entertaining the thought of her and Lexa ever, _ever_...) so no one would hear her moan as she clenched her thighs around her hand and shuddered through her climax. 

She had barely pulled her hand back out of her underwear before she was out.

In the morning, she didn't dare look any of the others in the eye. Even though they'd been asleep, she was sure they all knew exactly what she'd done.


	2. Chapter 2

Lexa sighed as Luna's fingers rubbed her scalp, using her fingertips to massage away tension until Lexa slumped back against her legs. She knew if she tilted her head back, Luna would be smiling, pleased with herself, but she didn't because she might have gotten poked in the eye with a comb as Luna drew a straight line down the middle of her head. 

"I know you know how to do this yourself," Luna said, wrapping an elastic around one bunch of hair and then gently separating the strands on the other side, way up by Lexa's hairline. 

"You do it better," Lexa said. With anyone else, it might have been an appeal to their ego, but Luna was one of the most selfless people she knew and had little in the way of ego to appeal to. Anyway, it was just a simple statement of fact. Lexa _did_ know how to braid her own hair – even French braid it – but if Luna did it, it would stay all day without loosening and frizzing out. 

That, and she just needed the comfort of another human being right now, before the campers arrived and all hell broke loose, and the minutes Lexa had to do anything for herself were few and far between. 

She wasn't freaking out, exactly, but she wasn't _not_ freaking out, either. It was funny how you could think you were prepared for something, and then when the moment arrived where you had to face it head on, you realize just how woefully unprepared you are. What if one of her girls got homesick? Or really sick? What if someone wet the bed? Or got their period for the first time? (The combination of the two was unlikely, but she didn't know yet what age group of campers she had.) What if they were all boy crazy? What if they were homophobic? What if—

Lexa's eyes snapped back into focus as the sun caught something bright, turning blonde hair into a halo in the early morning light. She willed herself not to look, not to let her gaze travel past Clarke's hair to her profile, her lips... _no don't look at her lips, and shit, definitely don't look any lower, don't—_

"Good morning, Clarke," Luna said. 

Lexa looked down quickly so she didn't get caught staring, and when she looked up again Clarke was hustling away at twice the pace she'd previously been going. She didn't think she'd heard Clarke return Luna's greeting, but probably her hearing had just done something funny. That happened sometimes when she was focusing on not focusing on something. Or someone. 

"So," Luna asked, leaning down so that her lips almost brushed Lexa's ear. "Are you finally going to tell her this year?"

"There's nothing to tell," Lexa said. 

Luna snorted and flipped the end of the first braid over Lexa's shoulder. "You do remember why we ended, don't you?" 

Lexa flinched. Luna's tone was teasing, but the memory still stung. They'd been friends since middle school, and they'd been coming to camp together since the summer after their freshman year, when Lexa suggested that Luna come with her to escape the war zone her home had become in the wake of her brother's death. By the time the summer was over, Luna's father had moved out, but eight weeks of peace and daily swims in the lake had helped Luna find a way to move on. Their second summer had been spent practically joined at the hip, and toward the end it started to feel like it might not only be the campfire giving off sparks. They'd been nervous about the possibility of ruining what they already had, but they'd decided it was worth taking a chance on. 

They'd had a good few months... almost six... and then Lexa had blown it all. One morning, half asleep and still glowing from the night before, she'd pressed her lips against Luna's throat and whispered, "Clarke."

For a second they'd just frozen, and then Luna had sighed and whispered, "Oh Lexa..." because they'd both realized in the same moment why it had always felt like Lexa was holding a little bit of herself back. Luna had tried to pull her closer, but Lexa had pushed her away, had gotten dressed and left, getting lost on the two block walk home because she couldn't see through her tears. She'd cried herself sick that day, and for several days after, and she had avoided Luna for weeks, until one day Luna had cornered her and told her, "So what, Lexa? So we broke up. That doesn't mean we have to let this break us _apart_." She'd taken Lexa's face between her hands and kissed her, so soft it was barely there, and said, "We love each other too much for that." 

Not a question. A statement of fact. 

An argument Lexa knew she would never win, so she didn't even try to have it. They could love each other without being in love, like they always had, and that was okay. 

But a year and a half later and Lexa still felt a stab of guilt any time that particular chapter of their shared history came up. 

"I'm sorry," she said softly, letting her head fall back on Luna's knees. "Lu—"

"Stop," Luna said, nudging Lexa's head upright again so she could start on the other side. " _I'm_ sorry. I shouldn't have said it." She combed her fingers through Lexa's hair, working out any last tangles. "I wish you could let it go."

"I _still_ don't understand how you can!" Lexa said. She craned her neck around to look at Luna. "I did one of the worst things you can do to a person!" 

Luna shrugged and turned Lexa's head back again. "You didn't say it during sex, so it could have been worse." Lexa groaned, and would have put her face in her hands if Luna hadn't had control of her head. "It was never because you didn't love me. You just loved her too. _Love_ her—"

"I don't," Lexa said. "I don't feel any kind of way about her. I can't."

"Why not?" Luna asked. 

"Because you can't love someone who hates you!" Lexa said. 

"One, I think you'll find that that's not true. Love and hate are two sides of the same coin, aren't they?" Luna didn't wait for an answer. "Two... are you really so sure that she hates you?"

"Um, have you _met_ her?" Lexa asked. 

Luna tugged her hair gently, and Lexa took it as a gesture of exasperation, the equivalent of an eyeroll when one couldn't see the other person's eyes. "You could try to make peace," she said. "What's the expression? 'Bury the hatchet'?"

"The only place Clarke Griffin wants to bury a hatchet is between my shoulder blades," Lexa said. "Can we not talk about this?"

"Fine," Luna said. "I'm done anyway." She reached the end of Lexa's braid around to tickle her nose, and when Lexa tossed her head back to escape it, Luna caught it and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Think about it," she said, and then let her go, quickly stashing the hair supplies in the cabin before rejoining Lexa on the path to the mess hall.

* * *

Lexa was given her camper list at breakfast, and she quickly scanned it, looking for any names she recognized from past year. She grinned when she saw the counselor-in-training assigned to her cabin. "Guess who I got?" she asked, pushing the list across the table toward Anya. 

Anya glanced down, scanning the list, and one corner of her mouth curved up. "Nice," she said. "And you know if she gives you any trouble, you can just send her to me." Tris had been coming to camp for years and had practically glued herself to Anya from day one. She was a good kid, and Lexa thought they would make a good team. 

"Is your buddy coming?" Luna asked. "Aden?"

"He said he is," Lexa said, her smile growing. 

"CIT?"

"Yup."

"Is he excited?" 

"I think so. A little nervous... or maybe that's me." Lexa shrugged. "Whoever gets him in their cabin will be lucky to have him." Aden was one of her favorite campers; she wished that she could wave a magic wand and turn him into a girl, just so she could have him in her cabin. She'd been assigned a younger group, 8- and 9-year-olds, so probably mostly first-timers. It made sense, since she was still young herself; an 8-year-old was far more likely to look at her and see an adult than a 14-year-old was. But it didn't help her nerves any, knowing that she was likely to be faced with a lot of kids who were away from home for an extended period for the first time in their lives. 

It also didn't help that she could practically feel Clarke's glare boring into her back. She'd made sure to take a seat facing away from her she couldn't accidentally catch her eye and do something embarrassing like drool on herself. She straightened, pushing her shoulders back like she could shrug off the twin lasers aimed at her. "It wasn't _my_ decision," she mumbled. 

"What?" Anya asked. 

"Nothing," Lexa said. "Never mind"

Anya looked for a second like she might not let it go, but then she just rolled her eyes and pointed at the plum Lexa had taken from the fruit bowl. "You gonna eat that?"

Lexa rolled it over to her. She'd managed to eat enough that it would get her through to the next meal but no more. Her stomach was in knots and it was all she could do to chew and swallow and keep it down. 

She felt Luna's hand on her back, rubbing gently up and down her spine, and she looked at her and smiled in gratitude. "You're so lucky," Lexa said. "Your job is easy." Luna's jaw dropped open, and Lexa smirked. "Seriously. How hard can it be, making sure a bunch of kids who have been trapped in kid-jail-I-mean-school for the last nine months and have finally been set free and given access to a large body of water from coming to harm?" 

Luna shook her head. "You're the worst. You know that?"

"And yet you're still friends with me," Lexa teased.

"For now." Luna's hand finally dropped away from Lexa's back. "Speaking of which, I should go make sure everything is ready." 

"Me too," Anya said. "Good luck with your girls," she added as she stood up. "Seriously. I hope you get good ones." 

"They're all good ones," Lexa said, because that's what she was supposed to say. And probably deep down they all _were_ good. It was just really, _really_ deep down for some of them. She picked up her list, gave Luna a quick hug, then went to go do a last check on her cabin before it was filled with chattering girls, nervous parents, and – because most of them were new to camp and didn't trust the packing list– _way_ too much stuff. 

The door burst open with a clatter half an hour before registration was supposed to start, and Lexa jumped, nearly banging her head on the bunk above her. "Who—"

"DIBS ON THE TOP BUNK!" Tris said, too loud in the small space. 

"You're the first person here," Lexa pointed out. "You can have any bunk you want."

"Oh, right," Tris said, grinning. "Hi!"

"Hi," she said, getting up to help Tris bring the rest of her stuff in. "Where are you—"

"Parents? I sent them home. I don't need them. I already know the drill. Once they got me checked in and my health form checked, I kicked 'em to the curve. Where's Anya?"

"Curb," Lexa corrected. 

"Curb? Where's that?"

"Kicked them to the curb. Not curve."

"Oh." Tris laughed. "I guess that makes more sense, doesn't it? Where's Anya?"

"Athletic field, I assume."

"Oh yeah. She's like, the boss there now, isn't she?" She reached for her pocket, then glanced at her wrist, and finally looked at the clock on the wall. "Do I have time?"

Lexa looked, then shook her head. "You need to get your stuff put away so when the girls arrive they're not tripping over it. You'll see her when we do the tour." 

Tris sighed, and looked like she might pout, but she didn't argue. She put her clothing into her set of drawers and her toiletries and other miscellaneous items on top of it, then shoved her bags under the bed. "Are you _sure_ I—" she asked, but before she could even finish the sentence, the cabin door opened and a woman came in, dragging a giant trunk. 

"You're going to love it," she said. "I promise. Some of my best memories are from summer camp." She was followed much more slowly and quietly by a little girl who didn't look at all convinced by her mother's rhapsodizing. She had a teddy bear clutched in her arms, but when she saw Tris, she quickly hid it behind her back. 

"Hi," Lexa said, leaning down as she approached her, so she didn't tower over her and make her even more nervous than she already was. "I'm Aunt Lexa. What's your name?"

The little girl swallowed and whispered, "Adria."

"Speak up," her mother said. "People can't hear you when you whisper."

"It's very nice to meet you, _Adria_ ," Lexa said, hitting her name hard to make it clear that she _had_ heard her. "That's Aunt Tris on the bunk above me," she added. "I'm your counselor, and she's a counselor-in-training, so if you ever need anything, you just ask one of us, okay? Or one of the other counselors if we're not around. But at least one of us will be nearby most of the time." She smiled. "You're in luck. Since you're the first one here, you get to pick any bunk you want."

"I've already picked one," her mom said. "Right over here." She patted the top bunk of the set of beds that jutted out into the room rather than being pushed up against one of the walls. "Right in the center of all of the action." 

"We really prefer that campers—" Lexa started to say, but then another girl arrived, parents in tow, and then a third, and before she knew it the entire place was packed with people and stuff, and it was all she could do to make sure she got to everyone and introduced herself. For a frenzied half an hour or so, it was impossible to move without stepping on something (or someone), and despite her best efforts, she lost track of Adria and her mother in the shuffle. 

Finally the girls and their parents left the cabin to say their goodbyes where there was actually room to lift their arms to hug. Lexa sat on the edge of her bunk, closing her eyes and soaking in the quiet, knowing it wouldn't last.

And it didn't. Soon all the girls were back in the cabin, chattering too loud and throwing things everywhere as they searched for their bathing suits (which had just been put away minutes before, and how they could have already lost them at the bottom of a drawer Lexa had _no_ idea).

Adria stood in the middle of it all, chewing on her lower lip and not moving. Lexa went over to her, crouching down again. "What's wrong?" she asked. Adria shrugged, staring at the floor in front of her. Maybe she was shy about changing in front of everyone? "I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong," she said, as gently as she could. 

"I don't want to take a test," Adria said finally. "I'm not a very good swimmer. Can I just not go in the water?"

"If you don't take the swim test, you can't go in the boats, either," Lexa said. "I promise it's not scary. One of my best friends in the whole wide world is one of the lifeguards. I'll introduce you to her. Okay?"

Adria looked ready to protest, but some of the other girls were already lining up at the door, ready to go with their shorts and t-shirts over their bathing suits, towels slung over their shoulders, some giggling as they tried to fashion them into togas or capes. "I promise it'll be okay," Lexa said. She solemnly drew an X over her heart. Adria gave Lexa one last look, then went to get into her own suit. 

The first stop on their tour was the athletic field, and Lexa had to remind Tris that the campers had shorter legs than she did, and there was no running on the camp trails. When they finally arrived at the big grassy space, Tris flashed an apologetic look at Lexa, then broke into a sprint, charging at Anya and leaping on her back. 

Anya staggered, then laughed and pried her off, wrapping her in a hug and keeping her tucked under her arm as she introduced the other members of the recreation team – Lincoln and Clarke's friend Octavia among them – and then went into her spiel about the different activities they offered throughout the week and the summer. "And every two weeks," she said, "we have an all-day, all-camp event where everyone gets a chance to show off their athletic skills. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?"

A few of Lexa's campers, the ones who had been here the year before, waved their hands wildly in the air. Anya grinned. "You can go ahead and shout it out," she said, and as one, at the top of their longs, they screamed, "COLOR WAR!" 

"That's right," Anya said. "Color War. Each cabin is assigned a color – red or blue – and you'll keep that color all summer long. Each event has points, and at the end of the day, the team with the most points wins a special prize. And we keep track of the points all summer long, so at the end of the summer, the team who has the most points for the whole summer gets an even better more special prize. So we encourage everyone to do their absolute best, but the most important thing is that you have fun." 

With that, they were on to their next stop on the tour, which was the nurse's cabin, and then the mess hall for a quick snack before heading to the Arts & Crafts cabin. Lexa felt her stomach swoop as they stepped inside and Clarke turned to smile at them. She tried to smile back, but she was afraid that it came out as more of a grimace, and let it collapse before Clarke got the wrong idea.

"Everyone find your seat," Clarke said, gesturing to the table where little wooden disks threaded on cords were distributed, each with one of the campers' name on them. She found her own name and sat down.

"For our first activity, you get to decorate your name tag, which we're going to ask you to wear for at least the first few days of camp. You'll learn each other's names really fast, but you're also going to be meeting a lot of people from other cabins, so it will help you all to get to know each other. Sound good?"

The girls made noises of assent and dove into the piles of markers and stickers and paint and glitter. "Just remember to make sure you name stays visible," Clarke reminded them as a few of them got a little overzealous. 

When she was sure that no one needed her, Lexa picked up a paintbrush and started to delicately add tree branches surrounding her name. For a little while everything was quiet, and then one of the girls called, "Aunt Lexa!" Lexa's head jerked up and she turned it quickly to figure out who had spoken, and the end of her braid flew and hit Clarke as she edged past... splattering black paint across the front of her shirt.

"Um..." the girl said, "I was just going to say that your hair was in the paint..." 

"I'm sorry," Lexa said, jumping up to find paper towels, wetting them at the sink and reaching for Clarke... then realizing that doing so would involve touching her breasts, and groping her was probably not a great way to make peace. 

Clarke snatched the paper towels from her hands. "No problem," she said through gritted teeth. "Accidents happen." 

Lexa bristled. It _had_ been an accident. If it had been one of the girls who had done it, Clarke would probably be laughing, rolling her eyes, shrugging it off like it was nothing. But because it was her... "Come on, girls," she said. "Let's finish up so that we can get down to the beach and give Clarke a few minutes to change before the next cabin gets here."

"Mine isn't dry yet," one of the girls said. "What if I get paint on me, too?"

"You can leave them here," Clarke said, her bared teeth glare relaxing into a smile. "They'll be waiting for you at dinner."


	3. Chapter 3

As soon as the screen door slapped shut, Clarke let the strained smile drop from her face. "Accident my _ass_ ," she grumbled, dabbing at the paint on her shirt. It was washable – they would be crazy to have anything here that wasn't – but it was going to take more than paper towels to get it out, and even if she _had_ been able to erase the big black splotch, it didn't change the fact that her boobs were now soaking wet. 

She looked at the clock, then scribbled a quick note to her next group saying she would be right back, tacked it to the door, and took off for the staff cabin as fast as she could go without actually running, because now the place was teeming with kids and she had to make sure to set a good example.

The staff cabin was almost directly across from the beach, and as she approached she couldn't help noticing that Lexa was there with her group of girls, who were stripping out of the clothing they'd put on over their suits and scurrying down to the water to await instructions. Only one girl – Adrianne? – hung back, shuffling closer to Lexa half a step at a time until she was close enough that Clarke was sure Lexa could feel the warmth radiating from her body. Lexa looked down and said something that Clarke couldn't hear before putting her hand lightly on the little girls' back and guiding her over to where Luna stood, clipboard in hand and a whistle around her neck. 

Aware that time was passing, Clarke forced herself to turn away, going into her room and quickly changing her shirt, draping the sopping, paint-y one over the end of the bunk to deal with later. When she emerged a few minutes later, Lexa was still with Luna, who had the end of Lexa's braid – the one with paint on it – between her fingers, aimed at her face like she meant to draw on Lexa with it. They were laughing, and something hot and dark bubbled in the pit of Clarke's stomach, because they were probably laughing _at her_ , or at least at what Lexa had done to her, which amounted to the same thing. 

She tore herself away again, stomping back to her domain and the group waiting for her there. "Sorry," she said, plastering on a smile as she let them in. "We had a little bit of an accident with some paint in the last group, and I had to run back and change quick." 

It was one of the boys' cabins, and they seemed unfazed by the delay. If anything, most of them seemed grateful for the reduced time they would be forced to spend doing something that most of them she was sure deemed 'girly'. "Let me get your name tags," she said, finding the appropriate bundle and quickly setting them out so they could find their seats. "You can decorate them however you like, as long as there's nothing on them that you wouldn't want your parents to see, and as long as your name is still visible." 

There were a few snickers, and more grumbles and groans. "Do we _have_ to?" one of them asked. "Maybe I just like it the way it is."

"No," Clarke said, "you don't have to. If you'd rather leave it plain, I can get you some paper to draw on."

"Can I make a paper airplane instead?" he asked. "I make totally kick-butt paper airplanes!"

Clarke was about to agree, but then realized that they didn't have a lot of time, and if she let one do it, they would all want to, and chaos would almost certainly ensue. "Not today," she said, "but I will definitely add that to my list – paper airplane folding contest. I don't want you to be rushed, and we don't have a lot of time today." 

They'd perked up at the word 'contest', and having the idea not dismissed out of hand, only delayed, seemed to forestall any whining. After a minute, most of them grabbed some markers to make their nametags more 'bad-butt', and when they left to go to their next area, they were already talking smack about whose future airplane was going to beat whose.

She'd barely gotten the next set of nametags out when the girls from Bluebird cabin arrived. "Hey Harper," she said, finally managing a genuine smile for the counselor of the next group. Harper had been coming to camp for almost as long as Clarke, and although they weren't super close, they made at least a token effort to keep in touch during the year. Which was why Clarke didn't take it personally when Harper's answering smile seemed a little tired and brittle around the edges; Clarke knew that her father had been sick, and the doctors were still working on a final diagnosis. Harper had considered skipping camp this year, but in the end her father had insisted she come, because having her around fussing over him wasn't going to change anything anyway, so she might as well get away and enjoy herself and make some money. (Clarke got the feeling that Harper had downplayed the importance of the financial aspect.)

"Everyone find your names," Harper said for her, "and let's all be quiet and respectful for Aunt Clarke."

The girls, who looked to be around the same age as Lexa's group, and was therefore probably most first-timers, shuffled around until they'd each found their spot, and clearly they were _trying_ not to fidget and to keep their hands off the art supplies until they were told they could touch them, but their restraint wasn't going to last long. 

"Like Aunt Harper said, I'm Aunt Clarke, and I'm in charge of Arts & Crafts. Today you get to decorate your name tags. Just make sure your name stays visible, okay?" She skipped the rule about keeping it appropriate; in all of her years at camp she'd never seen a girl draw anything crude on her name tag. 

Immediately a hand went up. Clarke made her way over to her. "Yes, Madi?" 

"Is this _permanent_ marker?" she asked. 

"That your name is written in? Yes."

"So if it gets wet it won't bleed?"

"Nope."

"Cool. Do you have any watercolors? I have an idea."

"Sure," Clarke said, getting out a set, and watched as Madi managed to create a really cool tie-dye swirly effect on the wood. When she was done, she held it up for Clarke to admire, and Clarke gave her a high-five, sensing she might have found a kindred spirit. "Awesome job," she said. "Everyone did an awesome job. You can leave them here for now, and you'll get them at dinner." 

Madi was the last one out the door, and she turned and waved cheerfully at Clarke. "Thanks for helping me!" she said.

"All I did was get you paint!" Clarke said, smiling at her. "You did the rest."

"Well thanks for getting me paint then!" Madi grinned. "See ya!" She dashed off to catch up with the rest of her group. 

Clarke sagged a little when she was gone, wishing that instead of being stuck in here, she was leading her own group of ducklings from one area of camp to the other. But apparently Aunt Hannah thought this was where she belonged, so she would just have to make the best of it.

* * *

At dinner, Clarke made her way from table to table, distributing name tags to the counselors to give to their campers, and having to stop every couple of minutes to untangle the cords because no matter how carefully she tried to keep them apart, they managed to end up in knots. 

She told herself that she wasn't avoiding the table where Robin cabin was sitting, Lexa at one end chatting animatedly with her group of girls. It just happened that their tags were near the bottom of the box that she'd put them all in. Eventually, though, she couldn't avoid it any longer, so she made her way over to the table, and all eyes turned to look at her. "Hey girls," she said. "How was everyone's day so far?"

She was answered with a chorus of "great" and "awesome" and "cool" and one slightly dejected "okay I guess", and she saw Lexa reach out to squeeze the shoulder of a pouting little girl.

"Only okay?" Clarke asked. 

"She got put in Minnow," one of the other girls said, in what was probably supposed to be a whisper but was clearly audible to anyone in the vicinity. 

Minnow was the lowest level you could get on the swim test, and you weren't allowed to go past the rope that marked off the 'shallow' end of the swimming area. On these girls, that was still probably chest-high water, but Clarke knew from being a camper that it was seen as a mark of shame, like you were restricted to the baby pool while everyone else got to go in the big pool with the older kids. 

"I'm not a bad swimmer!" the girl said, crossing her arms and jutting her chin. "I just got water up my nose and had to stop! It wasn't my fault!" 

"That's the _worst_ ," Clarke said. "I was in Minnow my first year at camp, too."

"Really?" the girl asked. 

"Yup. Luckily so was one of my friends so we could be buddies and it wasn't so bad. And I practiced swimming all summer long to get better so the next year I could be a Sunfish." 

"Were you?" the girl asked. 

"I was, and two years after that, I made it to Shark." Clarke grinned. "So I know you can do it."

"As long as no sneaky waves go up my nose," the girl said, but she was sitting up a little straighter now. 

Clarke smiled, and went back to untangling cords, passing the tags out herself rather than handing them over to Lexa. She got down to the last few, and as she leaned past Lexa to hand one across the table, she felt a soft touch on her arm, and then a whispered, "Thank you." 

Clarke jerked back, because the voice was so close she could feel the brush of breath on her cheek, and it was Lexa, Lexa touching her, Lexa's lips… She realized too late that she had been leaning over someone's glass of bug juice, and in her haste to get away from Lexa and the shivery feelings that whisper had sent through her that she was _not_ going to think about, she knocked it over, sending its contents racing across the table and over the edge... straight into Lexa's lap. 

"Fu—ishsticks," Lexa growled, righting the glass but helpless to do anything about the steady stream of red liquid soaking into her shorts. The campers watched – not just at this table but at several of the tables around them – wide-eyed and breathless, waiting to see what happened.

"Sh—ugar cookies," Clarke muttered. "Hold on, I'll—"

"I've got it," Luna said, nudging Clarke out of the way and handing a small towel to Lexa while she wiped up the bug juice with a wet rag. Clarke was sure she didn't imagine the dirty look that Luna shot her, and suddenly it all clicked. The comment the previous night after Octavia's bullshit suggestion that Clarke might have feelings for Lexa, the hair braiding this morning, the interaction on the beach, now Luna coming to Lexa's rescue to keep Clarke from... what? Making a move on her girlfriend over spilled bug juice? 

Not fucking likely. 

"Sorry," Clarke muttered, but there was a little part of her that wasn't sorry at all. Lexa had started it, after all, with the paint, and even if it _had_ been an accident, so was this, and all was fair in— Whatever. Lexa would get over it. 

She quickly gave out the last of the name tags, leaving Lexa's on the table a safe distance from the spill, and went to help bus tables. For the rest of the summer, each cabin would be rotated through taking turns distributing food and collecting the plates after, but on the first night, it was the responsibility of all camp staff that wasn't directly supervising a group of campers. 

Octavia brushed past her on her way to one of the tables. "Well that's _one_ way to get a girl wet," she snickered. 

If she hadn't been holding a big platter of food destined to be someone's dinner, Clarke might have wrapped her hands around Octavia's throat and squeezed. As it was, her fingers curled into fists, and her entire body tensed as she fought back the urge to throttle her. "Have I told you lately that I hate you?" she asked, and she wasn't entirely kidding.

Octavia just grinned and kept walking. 

Clarke went to get a tray to bring to one of the tables, still seething. Once all of the food was distributed, there was a lull while people ate, and she found herself hovering off to the side, waiting to be needed and wondering if that was what the rest of the summer was going to be like. So far, nothing was going the way she expected it to, and there was a part of her that regretted coming in the first place. 

"Hey Aunt Clarke!" 

Her head snapped up, and she looked around, trying to find the source of the small voice calling her name. She saw a hand waving in the air and went over. "Hi—" she glanced quickly down at the name tag, "Madi. Did you need something?"

"Do you want to sit with us?" she asked. "I know you're working but other people are sitting so you can sit too, can't you? Until someone needs you?" She scooted over on the bench and patted the space beside her (which was probably big enough for one of Clarke's ass cheeks... maybe one and a half...) hopefully.

Clarke glanced at Harper, not wanting to insert herself where she might not be wanted, but Harper just shrugged like, 'It's up to you.' So Clarke sat. "How was the rest of your day?" she asked. 

"Good!" Madi said. "I can't wait for Color War." She rubbed her hands together like some kind of miniature evil genius, and Clarke laughed. 

"I always liked Color War, too," she said. "For some reason, I always ended up in a blue cabin." And Lexa had always ended up in a red one, except that very first year when they'd been in the same cabin. They had been red that year, but Clarke didn't consider it worth mentioning. The less said about Color War that year, the better. 

"I hope we're blue then," Madi said. "Do you get to be on a team?"

"No," Clarke said. "I have to be Switzerland."

Madi's forehead furrowed. "What's that?" she asked. "I mean I know it's a country but what does it have to do with Color War?"

"Switzerland pretty much always remains neutral when wars break out," Clarke said. "I don't get to take sides."

"Oh." Madi wrinkled her nose and leaned it. "But you'll secretly be rooting for blue, won't you?" she whispered. 

Clarke made a motion like she was zipping her lips and winked, and Madi grinned and tried to wink back, but it was more of a slightly lopsided blink. Then someone at the next table's hand went up, and Clarke had to get up to go see what they needed.

* * *

That evening the all camp activity was a campfire sing-along... or really several, because there were too many campers to fit around any one fire pit. The cabins were divided by age, and the counselors at large were each assigned to one of the groups to help supervise. Clarke was assigned to the youngest group, because of course she was. It was the group that Lexa's cabin belonged to. To add insult to injury, Luna was also assigned to that group, so Clarke was forced to watch the two of them smiling and laughing, bumping shoulders and hips, little gestures of affection that would fly under the radar. Relationships between counselors weren't forbidden – there were married couples who worked here – but they were discouraged, because of the potential for drama if the relationship fell apart mid-summer. And where they did exist, there were pretty strict rules about PDA. Given the fact that Lexa and Luna were both girls, they had to be especially careful, because you never knew what the campers might have been raised to believe, and the last thing anyone wanted or needed was accusations of inappropriate behavior. 

Clarke almost felt bad for them; it couldn't be fun having to hide the fact that you loved someone. Almost, but not quite, because each fresh peal of laughter grated her nerves, nudging her just a little closer to the edge. She didn't know what would happen when she finally tipped over it. 

She was so busy alternately glaring and pointedly not watching them that she didn't notice that one of the campers had come up to her until she felt a tug on her sleeve. "Aunt Clarke, can you help me?"

Clarke looked down, and it was Madi again. "Hey you," she said. "What's up?"

"I asked if you could help me."

_Why are you asking me?_ , Clarke almost asked. _Why aren't you asking Harper, or..._ She couldn't remember Harper's CIT's name. That's who campers were supposed to go to first... but maybe they were busy. Or maybe Madi just liked her, for whatever reason. She felt the ice that had formed in the pit of her stomach melt a little. "Sure," she said. "What do you need?"

"I want to make a s'more but it's too crowded by the fire and no one will let me have a turn. I asked, but no one would move." Tears swam in her eyes, but her jaw was set. "And I wanted to just shove them out of the way but I didn't want to get in trouble."

"That was a good choice, not shoving them," Clarke said. "Let's see if we can find you a place." She put her hand gently on Madi's back and approached the fire, which was encircled pretty tightly by small bodies staring intently at marshmallows on sticks. She avoided the areas where boys were clustered and gravitated to where she saw some of Lexa's campers.

"What about here?" she asked, pointing toward a sliver of a spot next to a girl named Adria, according to her nametag.

Madi shrugged and pressed herself closer to Clarke's side. Clarke went over to the girl, and noticed Luna standing nearby. Clarke bristled, but ignored her, because she wasn't doing anything wrong. She crouched down. "Hi Adria," she said. "This is my friend Madi. Do you mind if she squeezes in right here?"

Adria looked up, her eyes wide, then shook her head. "I don't mind," she said.

"I know you!" Madi said. "I saw you do your swim test! Are you part mermaid or something? Because you can swim crazy good!" 

Clarke thought she saw Adria's cheeks go pink, but it might have been the heat of the fire or a trick of the light. "Thanks," Adria said softly. "I didn't see you..."

"That's okay," Madi said. "I got Sunfish, so I guess I did okay."

"I got Shark," Adria said, even more softly, like she was embarrassed. "But I don't really like going in water above my head."

"Well maybe if our cabins have swim time together we can be buddies," Madi said.

"Okay," Adria said, finally smiling a little. 

Madi beamed and stuck her marshmallow into the fire. She glanced back at Clarke, her face still lit up with a grin. "Thanks, Aunt Clarke!" she said, and then turned her attention back to Adria to talk about whatever it was that little girls talked about. 

"You're welcome," Clarke said, even though Madi didn't hear her. She felt someone come up beside her and glanced over, twitching when she saw that it was Luna. "Did you need something?" she asked, her tone probably a little sharper than it needed to be.

"I was just going to say thank you," Luna said, eyebrows raised. 

"For what?"

"From what I've seen, and what Lexa has said, Adria can be a bit shy," Luna said. "That's the most I've seen her smile today. Whether it was intentional or not, you've successfully played matchmaker."

"Oh." Clarke shrugged. "Madi just needed a place at the fire."

Maybe Clarke imagined it, but she thought Luna rolled her eyes. "Take the win, Clarke," Luna said. 

_Easy for you to say,_ Clarke thought. _You already have it all._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back, bitches! Hope it was worth the wait. ;-)


	4. Chapter 4

"All right, Robins," Lexa said, pitching her voice to carry over the crackling of the fire, the lapping of the lake, and the chatter of young voices. "Time to head back to the cabin!" She could hear other counselors calling out similar requests, gathering up their Eagles and Foxes and other varieties of wildlife. 

"Aww, do we _have_ do?" one of the girls complained. "Can't we stay a _little_ longer?" 

Lexa shook her head. "Nope. It's time for bed."

"But I'm not _tired_ ," another said, but the whine in her tone told a different story. 

"Maybe you're not tired now," Lexa said, "but if you stay up too late, you'll be tired tomorrow. Do you really want to yawn your way through the first full day of camp?"

"I guess not," she scowled, crossing her arms. "I'm getting bit all over by bugs anyway."

Lexa hadn't noticed a single mosquito all evening, but then she'd remembered to put on bug spray, and she wasn't sure all of the girls had, despite her (repeated) reminders. "All the more reason to get back," she said. She did a quick head count and came up with one too many. She looked closer, finally landing on a face that she didn't recognize. The girl was chattering away to Adria a mile a minute and seemed oblivious to the fact that she wasn't where she was supposed to be. 

Lexa approached them, leaning down to put herself closer to their level. "Hi," she said. "I'm Aunt Lexa. Do you need help finding your cabin?"

"Oh," Madi said, looking around and realizing that groups were starting to break off and leave. "Um. Maybe?"

"What cabin are you in?" Lexa asked.

"Bluebird," she said. "My counselor is Aunt Harper."

"Okay," Lexa said. She looked around and didn't see Harper anywhere. Had she left without one of her campers? She didn't seem like the type to make that kind of mistake, but then she had seemed a little distracted when Lexa had greeted her earlier, and with this many kids and their general inability to stay still, miscounting – or counting someone who wasn't yours – wasn't exactly out of the realm of possibility. 

"Well, I don't see her, but—" Lexa started.

"I'll take her." Clarke cut in, seeming to materialize out of the darkness. Lexa felt her heart lurch, and not in the usual way it did when she saw Clarke. In the, 'You scared the shit out of me, and if I didn't know better, I'd think it was on purpose' way. "Her name is Madi," Clarke added. "I'll take her." 

"You don't have to," Lexa said. "We're all going to the same place."

"You have enough to keep track of," Clarke said. "I don't mind." 

Lexa clenched her jaw, wondering if Clarke would be doing this if it was any other counselor, or if it was just because it was her. She knew Clarke didn't like her, had never liked her, and in moments like this, the feeling was pretty close to mutual. 

"Oh, hi Aunt Clarke!" Madi said. "I got forgotten!" She didn't seem bothered in the slightest. 

"Do you want me to walk you back?" Clarke asked. 

"Sure," Madi said. "Bye, Adria! I'll see you tomorrow I hope!" She threw her arms around Adria in a quick hug that the shyer little girl didn't have time to return before latching on to Clarke's hand, bouncing along at her side. Clarke shot Lexa one last smug look before heading down the path that would take them back to the girls' cabin area. 

Lexa did another count to make sure she hadn't lost anyone while trying to sort out Madi and sighed when she realized Tris had darted off to tackle-hug Anya, who had returned from wherever she had been assigned and had probably been about to head into the staff cabin when she got waylaid. "Tris!"

Tris glanced up at her name but kept talking to Anya until Anya gave her a stern look, took her by the shoulders, and pushed her (not entirely gently) back toward Lexa and the cluster of girls who were getting more tired and cranky by the minute. "Sorry," she said sulkily. "I just wanted to say goodnight." 

"I know," Lexa said. "Let's get the ducklings home."

"We're not _ducklings_ ," one of the girls said. "We're _Robins_."

"Of course," Lexa said. "How silly of me." She let Tris lead the way while she brought up the rear, making sure that there were no stragglers. She kept her flashlight pointed ahead of her, lighting the ground at the girls' feet so they would hopefully make it back without any stubbed toes or scraped knees. 

Once they were back at the cabin, it was chaos. Suddenly everyone needed the bathroom _right now_ and pajamas couldn't be found and toothbrushes were missing and someone's mom had packed her the wrong kind of toothpaste, this was the kind that her _sister_ liked, not her, and it didn't matter that they were twins, they didn't have to like the same things and why did her mother _always_ forget? (That problem was solved by sending Tris sprinting over to Cardinal cabin, where the girl's sister was staying – and having a similar meltdown – and switching the toothpastes.) Finally everyone was settled into their bunks, good night hugs dispensed to those who wanted them, and the lights turned out. 

"Your turn," Lexa told Tris softly, nodding toward the bathroom. Tris slipped inside to brush her teeth and hair and anything else she needed to do, then retreated to her bunk, leaving Lexa the only one up. Years at camp had taught her how to get through her bedtime routine quickly and quietly, and within ten minutes she was tucking herself in, letting the soft sounds of a cabin full of sleepy or sleeping girls lull her.

She had just dropped off when she was jerked awake by a rustling sound, and then padding footsteps and the click of the bathroom door. She didn't even open her eyes; if she woke up every time one of the girls got up to pee in the middle of the night, she would never sleep. But she couldn't quite settle – something felt off – and she was proven right when the quiet was broken by a soft wail from the bathroom. 

"Oh shi—oot," she muttered, and went to knock on the door. "Everything okay?" There was no answer, so she knocked again. "Who's in there?"

Silence, then another muffled cry. Lexa twisted the knob and found it wasn't locked. "I'm going to come in," she said. When there was no objection, she nudged the door open and peered inside. She wasn't surprised to find Adria sitting on the toilet seat, her arms wrapped around her knees and her face hidden from view. 

"Hey," Lexa said, crouching down. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"She took him!" Adria said. 

"Who took who?" Lexa asked.

"My mom. Took. My bear!" Adria cried. "She said. It's. For babies!"

"What a bi—" Lexa whirled around, her heart thudding against her ribs at the addition of a third voice to the conversation, and Tris cut herself off. "—ig, uh..." She disappeared from the doorway, then came back a second later, thrusting a tattered rabbit toward Adria. "This is Rascal," she said. "He loves to make new friends, and he told me that he especially wants to be your friend. But he was, um, afraid to say hi at first, because... because bears are scary!" She looked down at Lexa, her face all scrunched up like, 'Am I doing this right?'

Adria looked up. "Snuffles isn't scary!" she said. "He's the nicest bear in the whole world."

"Oh. Well... that's good to know," Tris said, squirming a little as she searched for what to say. "Maybe Rascal can meet him another time. But do you think maybe you would want to be Rascal's friend? For now?"

Adria looked from Tris to the stuffed bunny, then back to Tris. "Are you sure?" she asked. 

"Yup," Tris said. "He's been coming to camp with me since I was your age, and he'll take good care of you. I promise."

Adria bit her lip, then reached for the rabbit and hugged it gingerly, like she wasn't sure it could stand up to being squeezed too hard. But Rascal the Rabbit just flopped his head against her shoulder like he was hugging her back, and the deal was done. "Thank you," Adria said, smiling at Tris. 

"You're welcome," Tris said. She edged past Lexa into the cramped space, cupping her hand to her ear. "What's that, Rascal? You want to tell Adria a secret?"

Adria looked at the bunny in surprise, and of course she was old enough to know that stuffed animals couldn't really talk, but she was also shy enough – or polite enough – not to call the older girl's bluff. 

Tris leaned in like she was listening to the raggedy bunny, then smiled and whispered. "Wow," she said. "He must _really_ like you."

"Why?" Adria asked.

"Because he wants to tell you his middle initial, and he never tells _anyone_ that."

Adria's eyes went wide. "What is it?" she asked.

"E," Tris said. "Rascal E. Rabbit."

Lexa sucked in a breath and willed herself not to laugh. Of _course_ Rascal's middle initial was E. What else could it be? She looked at Tris, who winked, and Lexa was struck by the overwhelming urge to hug the stuffing out of the girl. 

"What does it stand for?" Adria asked.

"I don't know," Tris said. "He's never told me. Maybe by the end of the summer he'll tell you, though." She reached out and made the stuffed toy nuzzle its face into Adria's neck, finally drawing a smile. 

"You think you can get some sleep now?" Lexa asked. 

"I think so," Adria said. She put her feet on the floor and stood up, then shuffled forward, one arm stretched out and the other clutching her new friend, and hugged first Lexa, then Tris, who seemed surprised by the gesture, but not too surprised to hug her back. Adria went back to her bunk, leaving the two of them standing in the bathroom, watching first her, then each other.

"Was that okay?" Tris asked. "She—"

Lexa pulled Tris to her, the gesture abrupt enough that it drew a soft 'oof' from the smaller girl, and squeezed her. "That was perfect," she said. "You did a great job." 

Tris' cheeks flushed, and she flashed a crooked smile. "I know it's not the same as having her own toy, but I thought maybe..." She shrugged. 

"Are you going to be able to sleep without him?" Lexa asked. 

Tris shrugged again. "Probably," she said. "I don't sleep with him at home. He just sits with my other stuffies, waiting for the summer. I thought about not bringing him this year, because I'm supposed to be more of a grown-up now, but when I was packing he looked so sad I..." She bit her lip. "I know it's silly. He can't really look sad, because he's not real, but—"

"He seems pretty real to me," Lexa said. "And he's really helping Adria. So I'm glad you brought him."

"Me too," Tris said. "Can I go back to bed now?"

"Of course," Lexa said. "If you need anything, let me know."

"What if I said I need you to kick Adria's mother in the ass...partame?"

Lexa snorted. "Then I would tell you that I like my job and want to keep it... but I might do it a time or three in my dreams." 

Tris grinned. "Me too," she said. "Good night, Aunt Lexa."

"Good night, Aunt Tris," Lexa answered, and smiled to herself when it looked as if the teenager had grown several inches as she strutted across the cabin to her bunk. 

Lexa did a quick check of the bunks, making sure that everyone was asleep and there weren't likely to be any more issues. Adria blinked sleepily at her and made Rascal wave his paw, and Lexa smoothed back the little girl's hair and tucked her blanket a little tighter around her before returning to her own bed.

She closed her eyes again, allowing herself a quick rundown of the day. It hadn't been perfect, but there hadn't been any crises that she (with a little help from her friends) hadn't been able to handle. So she counted it as a success. 

One day down... she wasn't even counting how many more to go.

* * *

The next morning was chaos again, but Lexa had expected it to be. The girls were still learning – or remembering – where they'd unpacked things, and getting eight girls and two counselors through their morning routines with only one bathroom was bound to be a shitshow until they figured out who the early risers were and who needed a little more cajoling, who got ready quickly and who needed some extra time. Later today or tomorrow they would need to start chivvying the girls toward the showers, but for now they were clean enough that it was easier to just get through the basics of changing clothes, brushing teeth, and getting hair pulled back out of faces – a skill that not all of the girls had quite mastered on their own, so Lexa spent a good twenty minutes with one girl or another sat between her knees while she wrestled their locks into pigtails or braids or whatever they wanted. 

Finally they were as ready as they were going to get (and they would have time after breakfast to come tidy up the cabin before their morning activities) and Tris took the lead, marching them toward the mess hall at a much more sedate pace than she usually went. Lexa got the feeling that maybe she hadn't been exactly truthful about how well she would sleep without her stuffed friend, but maybe it was just the adjustment to camp and sleeping on a bunk bed, surrounded by people and all the little noises they made, even in sleep. Maybe she was just a teenager and mornings weren't her time to shine. Whatever the case, Lexa already knew one surefire way to perk her up. 

She got everyone settled at a table; for now they were still expected to sit by cabin, but as the week went on the rules would loosen up, and if they wanted to sit with friends from other cabins they would be allowed, at least at some meals. She kept an eye out for Anya and finally spotted her long, lanky stride though the screen of one of the doors, which she pulled open and allowed a cluster of campers to pass before coming in, Luna, Octavia and Clarke close at her heels. 

Instantly voices raised out of the crowd, calling for Aunt and Uncle So-and-So to come sit with their cabin. Adria spotted Luna and her eyes lit up, but she didn't say anything, and with a quick, quiet smile at Lexa, Luna strode past to sit elsewhere. Lexa made a mental note to mention it later; the counselors weren't supposed to play favorites, but there would be plenty of meals over the course of the summer, and there was no reason that Luna couldn't spend a few of them at their table. For now, she caught Anya's eye and motioned her over. 

"What's up?" Anya asked. "Everything good?"

"Better than good," Lexa said, standing up and quickly relaying story of Adria and Tris and Rascal E. Rabbit to her friend. "You raised her right," she said, her tone half-teasing, half genuine. "I'm lucky to have her."

"I could've told you that," Anya said, grinning, then went over and put her hands on Tris' shoulders, squeezing gently and whispering something into her ear before taking a seat across from her. Whatever Anya had said made Tris sit up a little straighter, and her eyes were bright as she helped the girls get breakfast from the serving dishes onto their plates. 

After breakfast they went back to the cabin, which looked like a tornado had torn through it, and got everything back in order so they wouldn't get in trouble after cabin inspection. (Which was partly about making sure things were kept clean enough to not be a safely hazard, but mostly about making sure that no one had any food out in the open where it might attract wildlife, but they didn't tell the kids that.) 

Then it was on to morning activities, which were dictated by camp leadership. This morning the Robins were assigned to a nature walk along with the Bluebirds and the Foxes (which was way too many people, Lexa thought, to move quietly enough through the woods to see anything at all, but what did she know?). On the plus side, it meant Adria's new friend Madi was with them, and Fox was Aden's cabin, so she got to check in with him. 

He looked slightly worse for the wear, and when she asked if everything was all right, he surreptitiously pointed to one of the boys from his cabin. "He whines," Aden whispered. "About everything. All the time. We didn't get to sleep until after midnight because he wouldn't stop complaining."

"I'm sorry," Lexa said, putting an arm around his shoulders and hugging him to her side. "He's probably just having a hard time adjusting. Hopefully it will get better." 

"It has to," Aden said, "because if it gets worse someone might just put a pillow over his face and—"

"Aden!" Lexa tried to look stern but she was fighting back a smile.

"I didn't say it would be me!" Aden protested.

She just shook him gently by the back of his neck, and finally he sighed and smiled. "You'll be okay," she told him. "And you know you can always find me if you need me."

* * *

In the afternoon the campers got to choose their own activities from a list of options they were given, which meant her campers got scattered across camp, and Lexa had to trust the other counselors to look after them. She had the option of assisting one of the groups – some needed more supervision than others – or taking a little time for herself, since no one could really be expected to be "on" twenty-four hours a day, (almost) seven days a week all summer.

In the end she just made a circuit around the camp, going from group to group to check on her campers and make sure that everyone was doing what they were supposed to be doing, and having a good time while doing it. She hesitated before approaching the cluster of picnic tables where Clarke had laid out string and beads and sets of instructions to turn them into various animals – lizards and skunks and such – which could then be used as keychains or backpack zipper pulls or whatever the kids wanted.

Clarke looked up from helping one of the campers and her eyes narrowed, and Lexa was pretty sure she wasn't just squinting against the sun, considering that very little of it permeated through the trees that surrounded the area. "Did you need something?" she asked. 

"I was just checking on my campers," Lexa said. 

"I don't ha—think I have any of yours," Clarke told her, managing to temper the edge in her voice before it drew the attention of any of the kids. 

Lexa looked around, quickly confirming that Clarke was right. Maybe she should have known that... maybe she _had_ known and had come over here anyway. Because she was a glutton for punishment? Because she liked pushing Clarke's buttons? She didn't even have to put any effort into that; her mere existence seemed to be a source of annoyance for Clarke, and always had been. Which led back to the original hypothesis that Lexa liked to torture herself.

"Looks like they're missing out," Lexa said, cringing internally because Clarke was going to think she was being sarcastic, that she was mocking her, that... Hell, she didn't know what went on in Clarke Griffin's head. Maybe someday she would figure it out, or maybe someday she would figure out how to stop caring. 

Today was not that day.

"Have fun," she said, heading off before Clarke could respond, her feet taking her toward the beach where she knew some of her campers were, and where she knew, in spite of everything, she wasn't unwanted.


	5. Chapter 5

_I was just checking on my campers._

Lexa's words echoed through Clarke's head even after she'd disappeared down the path toward the beach... because of course she was going to the beach. Where else would she go, but wherever her girlfriend was? Had she stopped by just to rub that in? Why would she? More likely she had come by knowing full well that none of the girls from her cabin were there; she'd just wanted to shove it in Clarke's face that she _had_ campers to look out for, and Clarke didn't. 

Even if she _had_ stopped by just so she could saunter off to go meet up with Luna, so what? She could do what she wanted; Clarke didn't care. Maybe, if she was lucky, they would get caught sneaking off to fool around when they were supposed to be watching the kids, and get _fired_. Relationships between members of staff weren't forbidden, but doing something that potentially endangered the safety of the campers sure as hell was. _Especially_ when the kids were around water, so—

 _Okay, Griffin. Reel it in._ No matter how much she disliked Lexa (and Luna by proxy), and no matter how much she might relish the thought of having a summer free of her – them – hoping they would do something that might actually put children at risk was taking things a little too far. 

_And she only has the power to ruin your summer if you give it to her,_ Clarke reminded herself. _Even if you're not exactly where you want to be, you're still at camp, the place you love more than anywhere else. You can let her get under your skin and make you miserable, or you can... not. Just ignore her. Pretend she doesn't exist. Make the best of what you've got, and have the best summer ever, just to spite her._

Maybe the last bit of her pep talk needed some work, but at least it kept Clarke from snapping when one of the campers started whining that this was too hard and the directions didn't make any sense and the string was too slippery and he couldn't find enough of the right color beads and...

"I'll help you," she said, taking a seat next to him. "Show me where you're having trouble."

* * *

As everyone came together for dinner and evening activities, Clarke put Operation: Ignore Lexa into effect. She breezed right by her table and found a seat far enough away that there was no chance of even hearing her voice, striking up a conversation with the campers – a group of boys who were somewhat less than enthusiastic about her presence, but too polite to complain about it. She made sure not to look in Lexa's direction even once, and when they were released for the evening's activity (a sunset canoe paddle) she made sure to keep herself well away from any of the girls from Robin cabin, lest it result in accidental contact with the enemy.

In bed that night, she realized that focusing all of her energy on avoiding Lexa meant Lexa was occupying just as much of her headspace and energy as when she was actively obsessing over her every word and move, and resolved that the next day she would find some kind of balance between the two. 

Which turned out to be easier said than done, but by the end of the week, she'd gotten reasonably good at casually ignoring her. It helped that she realized that she had an entire summer's worth of activities to plan for, and although some of the campers changed over the course of the summer, about half of them didn't, so she couldn't repeat the same thing too many times. There was only so many tie-dye t-shirts a kid needed, after all. (But tie-dye was something that even the boys got into, so it would definitely be on the agenda a few times.) She also included the paper airplane contest that the boys had been clamoring for, paper making, candle-making, friendship bracelets, lanyards... all of the standard stuff that was part of the camp experience. After a few days of letting ideas bubble up and over, she even started to think that maybe being in charge of arts and crafts instead of a camper cabin wasn't the worst thing that had ever happened to her. 

On Tuesday of the second week, it rained. And not just a light drizzle, which meant there were a lot more kids in her group than on a regular sunny day, because anything outdoors was a non-starter. Instead of being in the A & C cabin, she was assigned to the mess hall, which could fit a lot more people. She decided today would be a good day for the paper airplanes, because they didn't require a lot of supplies, and they would have the entire length of the room to fly them down. 

She started packing paper and markers and crayons and various other things she thought they might want to decorate and customize their planes into big plastic totes, and lugged them through the rain. The hood of her rain jacket kept blowing off, and by the time she got to the mess hall she was sure she looked like a drowned rat.

"Here," someone said, darting past her to grab the door. "Let me." 

Clarke looked, and of course it was Lexa. It felt like her heart tripped over itself, and she told herself it was only because she'd been doing such a good job of forgetting about her existence that the reminder had startled her. "Thanks," she said, stepping past her. 

"Do you need help?" Lexa asked.

"I've got it," Clarke said, setting the totes down on one of the tables. 

"Right," Lexa said. "Of course."

Clarke bristled. _Of course? **Of course?!**_ What the hell did _that_ mean? "Did you need something?" she asked, gritting her teeth and trying to force a smile into her voice as well as her face. 

"I just thought you might—" Lexa stopped. "Never mind," she said. "Good luck." She shoved back through the doors, long legs carrying her off the front deck and away, leaving Clarke staring at her ass – no, not at her ass, she wasn't staring at any part of her – with her blood boiling. 

And then the campers started arriving, back from their post-lunch siesta (where few of them actually napped; most of them read or wrote letters home) and raring to go. As tables filled up, Clarke wondered if maybe she shouldn't have been so quick to let Lexa storm off, because with one of her and several dozen of them, this could very quickly become chaos.

Thankfully, one of the older boys quickly stepped up and started getting the kids settled. Clarke realized it was Aden, the now-CIT who had been following Lexa around like a duckling for the last several years. She flashed him a smile – she would thank him properly later – and turned her attention to any stragglers, finding them seats at the almost full tables rather than having them start new ones. It would be easier if they weren't scattered over the entire mess hall. Once everyone was seated, she explained the activity and started passing out supplies, and soon they were all hard at work. She moved from table to table, along with a few of the cabin counselors who had decided to take refuge here for the afternoon, which didn't stop the chatter (nor was it meant to) but kept the worst of the trash-talking quiet. 

Finally there were enough planes done that they set up a tournament roster and began their first flights. Clarke was surprised by how quickly the time passed, and before long she could hear the sounds of dinner preparation going on in the kitchen, and occasionally amused faces popping out of the service window to see what they were up to. She had to stop a few of the campers from going rogue and trying to see if they could fly their planes through the window into the kitchen, but overall, everyone did what they were supposed to be doing with very little drama. (A little whining when planes didn't fly as well as campers hoped, a few quickly squashed accusations of cheating or favoritism, but nothing Clarke couldn't handle.) All too soon it was time for the campers to have free time. A few wanted to stay a little longer to race their new-and-improved planes against their friends, and Clarke let them while she cleaned up. 

"Thanks for helping out," she said to Aden as he put a box of markers in one of the totes. 

He flashed a smile and shrugged. "That's what I'm supposed to do, right?" He pointed to the little embroidered logo on his camp shirt that said CIT. 

"It is," Clarke said, "but I know sometimes you just want to be able to be a kid and have fun, so I appreciate you stepping up without being asked." 

"I _did_ have fun," Aden said. "I got to the semi-finals for my division." His smile was a little wider this time, and contagious. Clarke found herself grinning back.

"That's true," she said. "Great job." 

He shrugged again, but Clarke thought he stood a little taller with the praise. "I can help you carry these back," he said, gesturing to the packed totes. 

The part of her that felt like she ought to be Wonder Woman and do everything for herself rose up, but she squashed it. It wouldn't kill her to let someone help, and any effort made by potential future counselors to do something nice for someone else without being asked was definitely to be encouraged. "That would be great, thanks," she said. She grabbed one of the boxes and Aden grabbed the other, and they pushed through the mess hall doors, leaving the stragglers under the supervision of the cabin counselor that had stuck around. 

The rain had stopped, at least for the moment, and Clarke managed to dodge around the biggest of the puddles on the way back to the arts and crafts cabin. She tugged open the door and dumped the tote on a table, then stepped aside so Aden could do the same. 

"Do you want help putting things away?" he asked. 

"It's your free time," Clarke said. "You've done enough."

"I don't mind," Aden said. His face twisted into a grimace. "Honestly, I'm kind of avoiding going back to my cabin," he said. 

Clarke pressed her lips together, trying not to smile. "Why's that?" she asked. 

Aden bit his lip, eyes sliding to the side like he wasn't sure he ought to say, or maybe he was pretty sure he shouldn't say, but the words were already at the tip of his tongue, and if he didn't let them out he might explode. 

"It's okay," Clarke said. "I've been there, remember? I know how it can be. Sometimes you just need to vent." And if it was anything more serious than venting, it was her responsibility to make sure that it was addressed. 

He hesitated for a second longer, then said, "I hate one of my campers." His cheeks flushed, and he hung his head, peering up at Clarke through his bangs to see her reaction. 

She didn't laugh. It wouldn't be unprofessional. But she had a pretty good idea by now of which campers belonged to which cabins, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the camper he was probably referring to. And she could never say she agreed with him, _but..._

"He just _whines_ ," Aden said. "All the time. About everything. Like he doesn't even _have_ a normal speaking voice. It's just all whining. And he refuses to participate in pretty much any activity that requires him to move, and it drives me _crazy_. How does he know he doesn't like something if he doesn't even _try_?" 

Clarke nodded. "I can see why that's frustrating," she said, sure now that her guess was right. That particular camper ended up in her group most afternoons, because arts and crafts didn't require much in the way of physical effort... but the camper in question also wasn't too keen on expending mental effort, either. His frustration tolerance was basically nil, and he was prone to tantrums even though he should have grown out of them half a dozen years ago. "And I know how hard it can be, but you have to do your best to treat him like you treat all of the other campers... even though it takes a lot more effort to be patient with him."

"That's what Lexa says," Aden sighed. He looked up at Clarke suddenly. "You're friends with Lexa, right?"

Clarke managed not to make a face, barely. At least she hoped she did. And here she'd thought Aden was an observant kid... but maybe it meant she was better at hiding her feelings than she thought. "We've been at camp together since we were eight," she said, which answered the question without really answering the question. "We were in the same cabin our first summer."

"The first summer I was here I didn't really want to be," Aden said. "My parents were fighting all the time and I was afraid they were sending me away because they were getting a divorce and they didn't want me around. Which... that's kind of what happened, but Lexa talked to me a lot that summer, even though I wasn't in her cabin... obviously. It was her first year as a CIT and I thought that she was _so_ much older but now I realize she really wasn't because she was only my age now. But she made me feel better about it, and that maybe it was the best thing because everyone would be happier without all the fighting. And even after the summer was over she wrote to me and asked how I was doing and stuff. So she's pretty much my favorite person here." 

"I'm glad she helped you feel better," Clarke said, and meant it. Just because she didn't personally like Lexa didn't mean she didn't want _anyone_ to like Lexa. 

"I guess I should go," Aden said. "Unless you need help?"

"I'll be okay," Clarke said. "There's not that much to put away."

"Okay," Aden said. "Well... I guess I'll see you around?"

"Of course," Clarke said. "I'm here all summer."

* * *

By the time dinner rolled around, the rain had started up again, and showed no signs of letting up any time soon. When the meal was over, Clarke stuck around to help move the tables out of the way, setting up rows of chairs for those who wanted them, and clearing a wide space for any campers who preferred to sprawl out with pillows and blankets they brought from their cabins for movie night. Once everything was set up, she went back to the staff cabin to change into something warmer and more comfy, because along with the rain the temperature had dropped significantly. Octavia was there, her forehead creased in a scowl. 

"Anything in particular?" Clarke asked. "Or just the rain?"

"Just the rain," Octavia said. "And being trapped in a gym with a bunch of kids who would either rather be outdoors where they can actually run around, or who don't want to be there at all but didn't want to do any of the other activities either, and for some reason decided that it would be the best option for goofing off, or sitting in the corner gossiping." 

"Ugh, sorry," Clarke said. "At least the weather's supposed to be nicer tomorrow."

"It better be," Octavia said. "I can't take another day of this shit."

They finished getting ready and headed back to the mess hall, where campers were starting to arrive, scattering themselves around the room in clumps and clusters. They weren't restricted to staying with their cabin, and Clarke could see the cliques forming, especially amongst the older campers. It wasn't necessarily a problem, but it was something to keep an eye on. As long as everyone stayed at least reasonably friendly with everyone else, and didn't completely isolate themselves or ostracize anyone, groups of friends were bound to form. There would be drama when this group or that one splintered, as they inevitably did for one reason or another, but that was a problem for another day. 

She saw Aden and gave him a small wave, and he waved back before finding a seat with some of the other kids his age, and Clarke as honestly glad that he wasn't forcing himself to be "on duty" with his campers. From what he'd said earlier, he needed a break. She scanned the room, which was starting to fill up, trying to decide where to settle. 

Her eyes snagged on Lexa, who had thrown a flannel over her camp shirt, and a beanie over her hair, and she turned to go in the opposite direction.

"Ugh," a girl – middle school age, probably – said. "That outfit is _so gay_."

Clarke spun around, trying to pinpoint the speaker, already trying to figure out how to call her out without it becoming an Incident, but it turned out not to be necessary. 

"You're right," Lexa said. "It just came out of the closet this morning." 

Maybe it was her conversation with Aden earlier, or maybe it was the horrified, embarrassed looks on the faces of the girl who'd made the comment and her friends, or maybe it was the smug little smirk on Lexa's face... or maybe all three, but Clarke couldn't help it. She laughed. Or snorted, really. Not loud, but loud enough for Lexa to hear, apparently, because she looked up at Clarke and winked. 

Clarke gave her a tiny nod in response, because it was all she could manage, until she heard someone calling her name. She saw Madi standing up in the middle of a nest of pillows and blankets and little girls and waving her arms. "Come sit with us!" she called. "The movie's gonna start soon!"

Clarke double-checked to make sure that there were counselors fairly evenly distributed throughout the room before making her way over. "Here," Madi said, patting a spot on the floor. "You can sit next to me." 

Clarke would have preferred a chair; two hours on an unpadded floor was a long time – but she wasn't about to say no when Madi so clearly wanted her there. So she fit herself into the place Madi had made for her, and was rewarded by the little girl's beaming smile. Popcorn was passed out and then the lights were switched off and the movie came on, projected onto a giant white sheet (actually several sheets sewn together – if you looked close enough you could see the seams). 

Maybe half an hour in, Clarke felt Madi slowly slumping over, nestling herself against Clarke's side, and she finally wrapped an arm around her because she really had nowhere else to put it. Madi took that as an invitation to snuggle up completely, and by the time they were halfway through the movie, Madi was also halfway in Clarke's lap... and half asleep. 

"Can you watch my girls?" Harper hissed into Clarke's ear. "I need to..." She trailed off and didn't wait for an answer, just picked her way around the campers and disappeared into the darkness. By the time the movie was over, she still wasn't back, so Clarke gathered up the Bluebirds and all of their things and marched them back to their cabin. Harper was there, looking wrung out and exhausted. "Sorry," she said. "I lost track of time." 

"It's all right," Clarke said. "Is there anything—"

"It's fine," Harper said. "Thanks for bringing them back. Come on, Bluebirds. Let's get settled!"

Madi was the last one into the cabin, wrapping her arms tight around Clarke and pressing her face into Clarke's chest. She didn't say anything, just clung on until Clarke finally forced her to loosen her grip. "I'll see you in the morning," she said, smoothing back a stray curl from the little girl's face. "Okay? I'll sit with you at breakfast." 

"I'll save you a seat," Madi said, perking up a little. "Good night, Aunt Clarke."

"Good night, Madi," Clarke said. She gave Harper's shoulder a final squeeze before heading back to the staff cabin, where her room was filled with the activity of three – now four – young women getting themselves ready for bed.

"I mean, she wasn't _wrong_ ," Anya said from her perch on the top bunk. 

Luna laughed. "I guess not," she said. 

"Who wasn't wrong?" Clarke asked. "What'd I miss?"

Luna looked at her, and her smile (and eyes) narrowed slightly. Not much, but enough for Clarke to notice, and that told Clarke all she needed to know about who they were talking about. She almost said never mind, she didn't need to know, she didn't _care_ to know, but—

"Lexa," Anya said. "Someone called her outfit gay, which they shouldn't have done, but..." She raised an eyebrow. 

"Did she tell you what she said?" Clarke asked. 

Anya nodded. "Good thing she's so clever. I probably would have just torn the kid a new one." 

"I didn't know what I was going to say," Clarke admitted. "But she got there first."

"You'd think they would wait 'til she was out of earshot to make comments," Octavia said. 

"Because sixth graders are so well known for their discretion and restraint?" Clarke asked.

"Point." 

"I guess it's just going to be the summer for it," Luna said. "One of her campers already asked her if I was her girlfriend." The way she said it made it sound like she thought the question was amusing, but Clarke didn't know if it was supposed to be funny because 'yeah, duh, obviously' or because 'how could anyone even think that?' She'd thought... Or, rather, she'd _assumed_ , and they all know what happened when one assumed...

"What did she say?" Anya asked. 

"She told her the truth," Luna said. 

Clarke's heart clenched, and she tried to force herself toward the bathroom, to get away from this conversation that she shouldn't care about, why _did_ she care about it?, but found herself frozen in place.

"Which is?" Octavia prompted, and Clarke wasn't sure if she wanted to kiss or kill her for it.

Luna shrugged. "Not anymore."

* * *

Clarke laid awake long after everyone else had gone to sleep, unable to get those words out of her head: not anymore. They had been once; Clarke hadn't imagined the closeness and affection between them. But they were friends – just friends – even if they'd once been more. Which meant...

Nothing. It meant nothing. Not to Clarke.

But Aden had given her a glimpse of a side of Lexa Clarke hadn't seen before, or had maybe willfully ignored, and it made her think of Lexa's interactions with her campers, the way she seemed to know them so well already and found ways to give them what they needed to make camp feel like the home it had become for Clarke and so many others – including Lexa – over the years. 

And then she thought of the smirk, and the wink, and the way that she managed to look so good in a ragged oversized flannel and slouchy knit hat, and the _wink_ , that fucking wink, it fucking _haunted_ Clarke, because it had stirred something in her that she didn't want to think about, didn't dare let herself feel, only she needed to sleep, and she knew one surefire way to get there, and everyone else was asleep anyway...

She closed her eyes and Lexa winked, reassuring her that no one else ever needed to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up that I will be taking a hiatus from posting for the month of July, so this will be the last update of this story until August. At least I didn't leave you dangling off a cliff, right? ;-)
> 
> Also, I wish I could take credit for Lexa's comeback, but I actually got it from a post I saw online, which I could have sworn I bookmarked to link back to when I posted this, but now cannot find. Oops.


	6. Chapter 6

Lexa stripped her bed, folding up the blankets and shoving the sheets in the laundry bag, leaving the bed bare for whoever would occupy it tonight... assuming it wasn't her, but it most likely would be because where else was she going to sleep? She hefted the canvas tote over her shoulder and headed for the staff cabin, hoping that if she got there early enough, there would be a washer available. The staff who lived there could do laundry any time they wanted (and were encouraged to do so on a day other than Saturday, when the cabin counselors had their day off). 

She nudged open the door and stepped inside, looking around even though she'd been in the building plenty of times before. She told herself she wasn't looking for Clarke – and she _wasn't_ looking for Clarke, exactly... Mostly she was looking to avoid confrontation. When you only had 24 hours off out of 168 (there was downtime when she wasn't responsible for her campers during the week, but it didn't add up to much, and she never felt like she would turn the counselor part of herself completely off during those times anyway) you tried to make it as stress free as possible.

"Good morning," she said amiably to Lincoln's broad back as she stepped into the laundry room. 

He jerked, twisting around to look at her, and it was only then that Lexa noticed he wasn't alone. Octavia's knees jutted on either side of his hips, and her face was pressed into his chest. It wasn't just the vibration of the washer she was sitting on making her shake. Lincoln flashed a sheepish smile. "Morning," he mumbled. "We were just getting—going." Octavia snorted, then squealed, and Lexa didn't really want to know why. "We were just going."

"Okay," Lexa said, keeping her eyes fixed on the trees outside the window, giving them a moment to compose themselves. She heard muffled laughter, then shuffling footsteps, and finally she was alone. She dumped the whole bag into the machine; she didn't bring anything white to camp, ever; it only complicated doing laundry unnecessarily. She grabbed the bottle of detergent with Luna's name on it from the shelf and dumped some in; she would buy the next bottle if they ran out before the summer ended. She closed the lid and twisted the dials to the right settings, then leaned against the machine... and then pushed herself away because after what she'd just witnessed, she didn't know who might have done what where, or whether they'd cleaned up after themselves. 

One of the dryers was already running – they were encouraged to hang things to dry as much as they could, but sometimes there was no time for that, and no one was about to hang their underwear out for everyone to see anyway – so the room was stuffy. She shoved open a window to let in a breeze, but there wasn't really any reason to hang around. She set the timer on her phone to remind her to come back when the wash would be done and went back outside.

"There she is!" Anya said. "The woman of the hour!" 

"What are you talking about?" Lexa asked, leaning into Luna as her best friend's arms closed around her. 

"What I want to know," Anya continued, "is how it's possible for you to keep us awake at night even when you're all the way across camp." There was a glint in her eyes, a mischievous smirk that put Lexa on edge. Whatever Anya was about to say or do, Lexa was pretty sure she wasn't going to like. She was tempted to try to ignore her, to pull Luna away to go do something that involved being somewhere else. But she knew Anya, and knew that if she walked away now, whatever it was would just be waiting for her later. 

Better to rip off the Band-Aid. 

"What do you mean?" Lexa asked warily. 

Anya pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped on the screen, sidling up next to Lexa and stopping so close Lexa could feel the heat radiating from her skin. She held out the phone, and Lexa looked at the screen, but there was nothing to see. "Listen," Anya said, holding it closer to Lexa's ear. 

At first Lexa heard nothing, then some rustling, and someone breathing. But it wasn't a steady in and out; the inhale was ragged and exhale was a moan, a moan that sounded almost like...

"Lexa..."

Blood rushed to her face, and she could feel her pulse pounding, hear it in her ears, but not loud enough to drown out the voice, a voice she would know anywhere because she'd been so acutely tuned in to it for so long...

"Please, please, Lexa..."

She grabbed for the phone, but Anya yanked it away, so Lexa did the next best thing: she slugged Anya as hard as she could. "Delete that."

Anya yelped, almost fumbling the phone as she clutched her upper arm where Lexa had connected. "Ow, Lexa, what the fuck?!"

"Now!" Lexa growled, lunging for the phone again, but Luna caught her and hauled her back. 

"Easy," she said, her lips almost brushing Lexa's painfully red ear. "Getting into a fight isn't going to solve anything." 

"It will if it gets her to delete that!" Lexa snarled, trying to hurl herself at Anya again. Luna's grip tightened, anchoring her in place, and Lexa had forgotten how much upper body strength swimming gave a person. 

"It won't if you get fired for giving a fellow staff member a black eye," Luna said. "Come on, Lexa. Breathe." 

"Delete—"

"It's deleted!" Anya said, holding up her phone, her eyes flicking to Luna before she approached, like she wanted to double check that she wasn't going to set Lexa loose as soon as she was in range. "Okay? It's deleted."

"Does your phone back up to the cloud?" Lexa demanded. "If it does, you better fucking delete it there, too, because if I hear—"

Anya's fingers flew across her screen. "Done. Now will you calm the hell down?"

"Walk away, Anya," Luna said. "I'll deal—"

"You'll deal with me?" Lexa said, turning enough to wedge her arms between them, but she couldn't generate the leverage she needed to actually push Luna away. "Is that what you were going to say? You'll _deal_ with me? As if _I'm_ the one with the problem?!" 

"Well I'm not the one whose fists are flying, so—" Anya started, but stopped at Lexa's glare, or maybe Luna's. 

"No, _you're_ the one who decided it was okay to record someone in a private moment without their fucking consent, and then make me listen to it," Lexa said. 

Anya blanched, and her mouth dropped open but no sound came out. 

"Why, Anya?" Lexa asked, her initial anger cooling to something much more painful. "You thought it would be funny? Did you think I would _laugh_? 'Oh, isn't it hilarious how the girl you've had a crush on since before you even knew what a crush was is—'" She stopped. She couldn't say it. She turned to look at Luna. "You can let go of me now," she said. "I'm walking away."

Luna hesitated, but finally her arms dropped, and Lexa shook herself off. She took a step towards Anya, and Anya flinched, but didn't back up. "I thought you were my friend, Anya. I thought you were a decent fucking person. I guess I was wrong on both counts." She held Anya's eyes for a long second, then turned and walked away.

"Don't," she said when Luna tried to follow, then softened her tone. "Not right now."

Luna nodded and backed off, and Lexa left them both behind.

* * *

She was deep in the woods when the alarm went off on her phone, not quite lost but close to it. She knew roughly what direction she'd come, and she had a compass on her phone, so she would be able to find her way back when she decided she was ready.

She wasn't sure she would ever feel ready. 

So she kept walking until she found herself in a clearing that led to a rocky little outcropping that sheltered a tiny beach... and realized she wasn't lost at all. Her feet had brought her here without her mind even noticing, and a lump formed in her throat. She and Luna had discovered this place on a not-entirely-authorized hike the first summer Luna had come to camp, and they'd returned many times since. Some of her sweetest memories were here, even if time had tinged some of them with just a hint of bitter.

Lexa perched on one of the rocks, keeping to the shade because she hadn't remembered to put on sunscreen that morning before leaving the cabin, and watched the sun sparkling on the lake until her eyes blurred, and she put her head down on her knees and let the tears flow. 

She didn't look up even when she heard footsteps approaching. She wasn't naïve enough to think that she and Luna were the only people who had found this place over the years, but they'd never once been interrupted by anyone else in any of their forays, so it seemed a safe bet as to who her uninvited guest was. 

"I brought you some water," Luna said, setting a bottle on the rock between her feet, "and I put your laundry in the dryer."

Lexa sniffed, nodded. "Thank you." She picked up the bottle, beaded with condensation, and took a few quick gulps. Luna had gone to the trouble of getting ice from the kitchen, so it was almost painfully cold... just the way Lexa liked it. 

"Of course," Luna said. "I also brought you some snacks, in case—"

"I'm not hungry," Lexa said. Her stomach was in so many knots it didn't feel like she would ever be hungry again. 

"Okay," Luna said. She set down a small bag by Lexa's side. "If you need anything..." She trailed off, and Lexa imagined she shrugged, and then her footsteps started to retreat. 

Lexa finally turned. "You don't have to go," she said softly. "I mean... unless you have to go. But you don't have to leave on my account."

Luna climbed up on the rock beside her and laid a hand on Lexa's back, between her shoulder blades, and that was okay. Lexa could handle that. She sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, took another swallow of water, watched the waves...

"Did you know?" she asked finally. 

"About the recording?" Luna asked. "No."

"About..." Lexa still couldn't say it. 

"She's not as quiet as she thinks she is," Luna admitted. "And we're not always as asleep as she thinks we are." 

"I'm sorry," Lexa said, flushing. 

"Why?" Luna asked. 

"For keeping you up. For her—"

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Luna said. "You didn't do anything." 

But she had... hadn't she? She must have. Clarke wouldn't just...

Lexa couldn't go there. She couldn't think about what possible reason Clarke had for saying Lexa's name, for begging her... 

Lexa gulped down more water, hoping its chill would quench the fire that flickered in her belly as she remembered the whispered pleas pouring from Clarke's lips as she touched herself, the way her breath had caught when she finally—

She shoved the memory down, deep, and tipped her head onto Luna's shoulder. "Why did she do that?" she asked. "Anya. Not—" She grimaced. 

"I don't know," Luna said. "I don't think she was really thinking when she did it." 

"If something like that got out, it could ruin Clarke's life," Lexa said. "Maybe not her whole life, but her life _here_ , and I couldn't let that happen." 

"I know," Luna said. "I don't disagree with what you did." Her mouth quirked into a crooked smile. "I don't even really disagree with how you did it, but I didn't want it to escalate further and risk you getting in trouble." 

"I know," Lexa echoed. She lifted her head again, and Luna was _right there_ , the breeze blowing her hair so it tickled Lexa's face, and Lexa loved her and it would be so easy to just... 

Luna leaned in so their foreheads rested against each other, and her nose brushed Lexa's as she shook her head. "There's no going back," she said softly, as if she'd read Lexa's thoughts and needed to dissuade her, or maybe for that moment she'd shared them, and her words were meant for both of them. 

"I know," Lexa said softly. Because she loved Luna too much to hurt her again, and worse this time because she would be doing it knowingly. She lifted her head and shifted away so they were no longer touching, and tears flooded her eyes again. 

"I think I should go," Luna said softly, brushing her cheeks as she slipping from the rock. "Lex?" Lexa looked up. "Don't let this eat away at you," Luna said. "I know it's hard, but try not to obsess. Maybe this is a sign that it's finally time to let yourself think with this," she tapped her chest, "instead of this," her head. 

"Maybe," Lexa said, but it lacked conviction. "But—"

Luna shook her head. "No buts," she said. "Buts come from here." She touched her temple. 

Lexa sighed, nodded. "Maybe I should be the one who goes," she said. "Let you have our—the place for a little while. I need to go check on my laundry anyway." 

Luna forced a smile but shook her head. "It's not the same without you," she said. "I'll see you later." She disappeared back into the trees, leaving Lexa alone again with a heart that was struggling to shatter and mend at the same time.

* * *

Lexa opened the door to the staff cabin to retrieve her clothing from the dryer, and for the second time that summer, she and another counselor collided, only this time it was Harper who was coming out and Lexa that got knocked back off the porch, and both of them were in a daze. Lexa managed to right herself before hitting the ground, and she would have been embarrassed by the complete lack of grace she displayed but she didn't think Harper even noticed. She was staring into the distance, her eyes glazed, red-rimmed and puffy... which probably made two of them, but her own appearance wasn't important right now. 

"Harper?" she asked. "Are you all right?"

Harper shook her head, then nodded, then shook her head again, and after a few forced blinks her eyes finally seemed to focus. "Fine," she said. She sounded anything but.

"Are you—" Lexa stopped herself. She wasn't looking to pick a fight; she'd been in enough of those for one day. And while Harper was usually good-natured, she was clearly dealing with something, and in Lexa's experience, when someone was in that kind of heightened state, being asked if they were sure after they'd already said they were fine was a surefire way to get them to lash out.

"I just need to—" Harper stopped. "My stuff," she said. "I need to move my stuff." She turned around and went back inside, and Lexa barely managed to catch the door before it swung closed. She hesitated, wondering if Harper would think she was following her, but she had every right to be here, and if Harper _did_ get shirty about it, well, the truth was on Lexa's side. 

She let the door close behind her, noticing that a few mosquitoes had managed to find their way in during her moment of indecision, and she hoped every one of them found Anya in the night. 

She pulled her dry, still warm clothes from the dryer and dumped the on the table, quickly sifting through to find her underwear and bras, folding them first and settling them into the bottom of her laundry bag... where half of them would be unfolded by the time she got back to her cabin anyway, because bags were like that. She ignored Anya's voice in the back of her head, teasing her for folding her underwear at all. 

Should she forgive Anya for what she'd done? She'd deleted the recording, and as far as Lexa knew, she was the only one who had heard it (who hadn't also heard it firsthand), but that didn't excuse the fact that she'd thought it was okay to do in the first place. Was the possibility that Anya just hadn't been thinking enough of an excuse? Lexa didn't think there was any malice in it; she hadn't make the recording to hurt Clarke, and she hadn't played it back to hurt Lexa. She really had seemed to think it was funny... but so what? 'It's just a joke' was the first excuse people went to when someone got upset by something offensive they said or did. 

If Anya apologized, would that be enough? But who should she be apologizing to? From where Lexa stood, the person she most owed an apology to was Clarke, but Clarke didn't even know about it. Would it actually serve a purpose to have Anya tell her what she'd done just to say she was sorry she'd done it? Would that make it better or worse? It would certainly destroy any trust Clarke had in Anya, and sour their working relationship, and they still had to live together for the rest of the summer. What if Clarke reported it to Aunt Hannah? It would almost certainly get Anya fired, and Lexa knew she loved this job, and _needed_ this job. 

She needed to talk to Anya. She didn't want to talk to Anya, but she needed to. 

The door slammed, and her heart leapt into her throat as she whirled around, sure that Anya would be standing there. 'Speak of the Devil and She will appear,' and all that. But when she looked there was no one there, and when she poked her head out, she saw Harper's retreating back through the screen. A second later, Aunt Hannah stepped out of her office. "Oh, hello," she said, smiling at Lexa, but it looked strained. "How are you?"

"Great," Lexa said, wincing at how fake it sounded. "Just finishing my laundry."

"I don't suppose you've seen Clarke around, have you?" Aunt Hannah asked.

Lexa's heart dislodged itself and this time plummeted to the pit of her stomach. "No," she said. "Why?"

"I need to talk to her," Aunt Hannah said. She must have seen something in Lexa's face, because she turned up the brightness of her smile. "Nothing to worry about," she said, reaching out and patting Lexa's arm. "If you see her, can you ask her to come see me?"

Lexa nodded, trying to relax her hands as she felt her nails digging into her palms. She swallowed, licked her lips. "I will," she said. 

"Thank you, dear," Aunt Hannah said, and went back into her office. 

Lexa finished folding her laundry, shoving it haphazardly into the bag, knowing that she would have to fold it all again when she put it away. She didn't care. She needed to find Clarke. Or was it Anya she needed to find? They'd been outside the staff cabin when Anya played the recording; had Aunt Hannah somehow overheard? It had barely been loud enough for Lexa to hear, but...

She burst out the door and took off down the path at an awkward trot, scanning the area for the flash of bright blonde hair, but didn't see her. Should she go to the Arts & Crafts cabin? It was Clarke's day off, too, but that didn't mean she might not be in there working on her own stuff; Lexa had seen a few of her drawings and knew she was talented. But wouldn't she rather be outside somewhere sketching? Where did Clarke go when she had time to herself? 

Aunt Hannah's voice chimed through the open windows. "Ah, Clarke," she said. "Just the person I was looking for. Can you step into my office for a moment?"

* * *

Lexa could hear the clamor of little girls' voices even from outside. 

"I heard someone _died_!" one of the girls whispered none too quietly. 

"Aunt Harper _died_?!" another asked. 

"No, not Aunt Harper!" Lexa didn't have to see the accompanying eyeroll; she could hear it in the girl's voice. "Her dad!"

"Her dad died?"

"That's what _I_ heard!"

"He's not _dead_ , only almost."

"Did he get in an accident?"

"I dunno, maybe."

"I think he got sick."

" _Really_ sick. _Hospital_ sick."

A hush fell over them, and Lexa finally opened the door and stepped inside. In an instant she was surrounded by her campers, all reaching for her, gripping or tugging any part of her they could get their hands on. 

"Is it true?" "Is Aunt Harper okay?" "Is her dad okay?" "Is _my_ dad okay?" "I want to call my dad!"

Lexa set down her laundry and did her best to gather them all to her at once. "I haven't heard anything," she said, stroking hair and rubbing backs as best she could, "but as soon as I know, I'll tell you, okay?" By which she meant, 'As soon as I'm told what to tell you, I will,' but they didn't need to know that. "As far as calling home..." She sighed and pulled out her phone. "Who knows their phone number?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So when I originally had the idea of Anya recording Clarke and playing it for Lexa, I thought it would be funny. Then I started writing it and realized just how epically fucked up it was. Oops? At least Luna kept Lexa from getting herself fired...


	7. Chapter 7

Clarke heard the screen door bang shut and finally dared to stick her head out of the bathroom, where she'd been holed up since she realized Lexa was in the building. A glance through the screen showed Clarke her nemesis' retreating back. She started to step out, but then Lexa swung back around like she was looking for someone, and Clarke froze. It was ridiculous; she had every right to be here. She _lived_ here, for fuck's sake! Lexa didn't. Lexa was the interloper, the intruder, the...

_Slow your roll,_ Clarke told her. _You're not thinking about her anymore._

_Except when you're having trouble falling asleep and need a little... inspiration,_ her conscience teased her. 

"Go fu—dge yourself," she muttered, altering the curse mid-stream as Aunt Hannah poked her head out of her office. Clarke felt her cheeks go pink, but if the camp director had heard her near-slip, her face didn't show it. If anything, her expression looked a little brighter.

"Ah, Clarke! Just the person I was looking for. Can you step into my office for a moment?"

Or maybe she had heard after all. But she wouldn't call Clarke into her office over something as silly as half a curse word, said out of the earshot of campers. Worse was said all the time behind these closed doors, and Clarke was positive Aunt Hannah heard at least some of it. It was probably just something routine, checking in to see how Clarke was doing, maybe wanting to make sure she didn't need extra supplies for any of the projects she had planned for the upcoming weeks. No reason to panic.

"Of course," Clarke said, pasting on a smile. She followed Aunt Hannah into the cluttered room. 

"Can you shut the door?" Aunt Hannah asked. Clarke's stomach plummeted, and it must have shown on her face, because the director flashed her a reassuring smile. "You're not in trouble," she said. "It's just not something that I want just anyone to overhear." 

"Oh," Clarke said. "Okay." She closed the door and took the seat that Aunt Hannah motioned to, folding her hands on her knees and crossing her ankles, then realized how much of a goody-two-shoes she must look and undid both, trying to appear relaxed and not as if she was waiting for her world to come crashing down around her ears.

"As I'm sure you know, Harper's father has been sick," Aunt Hannah said. 

Clarke nodded. She'd known for a while now. She'd even done some research when she found out his diagnosis, hoping it would give her some idea as to how to best support her friend. She knew what it was like to not have a father, and even though Harper's was still around, Clarke thought her own loss gave her some idea what it would be like to fear losing him. 

"Unfortunately, Harper just found out that he's taken a turn for the worse, and even though he should recover, and tried to convince her to stay, she's made the decision to leave camp to go be with him and the rest of her family. Which, as you can imagine, leaves us in a bit of a bind." Aunt Hannah grimaced. Clarke knew that she cared about Harper, just like she cared about all of them, and knew that she would do everything to support her. But _because_ she cared about all of them, the director also needed to be practical. 

"It's fine for tonight – there's a volunteer in the cabin looking out for the girls already, since it's Harper's day off." She paused, and Clarke forced herself to stay perfectly still as if Aunt Hannah was an animal she didn't want to spook. As if any sudden movement might change the course of where she thought this conversation was going. "I know that when you originally applied, it was for a position as a cabin counselor," Aunt Hannah continued. 

Clarke nodded, her nails digging into her palms as her hands clenched, trying to clamp down on her rising excitement. Because all of a sudden the summer she'd dreamed of, the one she'd thought she lost when she'd gotten the Arts & Crafts assignment, was back within reach. She just had to reach out and grab it. 

"I was hoping that you might be willing to step in for her," Aunt Hannah said, and Clarke only barely managed to suppress a grin. She didn't want it to look like was celebrating, given the circumstances. But inside, she was doing a dance of joy. "Just for a few days, until we can get someone here to take over her cabin for the remainder of the summer." 

"Oh," Clarke said, more an exhalation than a word as the words hit her like a sucker punch to the gut, and she watched her dream start to slip away again. But before it could disappear completely, she reached out and grabbed it by its tail, holding on with all her might. "Or Arts & Crafts," she said. 

Aunt Hannah tipped her head. "I'm sorry?"

"Instead of finding someone to take over Harper's cabin, you could find someone to take over Arts & Crafts," Clarke said, "and I would take her cabin for the rest of the summer. It might be easier to find someone that way and get them up to speed. I already have most of the summer planned out, and I would be happy to help them get acclimated. And I already have a rapport with the campers, so it might be an easier transition for them than having a complete stranger come in, especially since I'm sure they're going to be having a lot of feelings about Harper's departure." 

Aunt Hannah was quiet for a long time, and Clarke was tempted to say more, but then she might be overselling it, making herself sound desperate, and maybe she was, a little, but she couldn't let it show. It wasn't like Arts & Crafts was the purgatory she'd expected it to be; she'd honestly been having a lot of fun. But she'd wanted to be a cabin counselor for almost as long as she'd been attending camp, and this was her opportunity. She wasn't just going to let it go.

"That might not be a bad idea," Aunt Hannah said finally. "I'm going to do my best to get someone here as quickly as possible, but until I do, I'm going to need you to do double-duty. With help, of course! I'll make sure you have help so you get at least a few minutes to yourself during the day. We'll consider it a trial run, and once we've got the newcomer – whoever they are – here, I'll make a final decision. All right?"

Clarke nodded, maybe a little too vigorously. "Yes ma'am. Thank you."

Aunt Hannah smiled. "None of that," she said. "You're doing _me_ a favor. Rest up tonight, because tomorrow is going to be a long day."

* * *

"So you're just going to abandon us, just like that?" Octavia asked, sprawling on Clarke's bed and knocking over the piles of clothing she'd carefully laid out. Maybe packing her stuff was premature, but if she was going to be in Bluebird cabin even for a few days she was going to need clothing. 

"Get off my bed," Clarke said, shoving her out of the way. She didn't know how to answer her friend's playful (at least Clarke thought it was) accusation. She could say it was temporary, but it might not be. She certainly didn't want it to be. She could say she wasn't abandoning them, but in a way she was. She wouldn't get much time to spend with them – or O, really, she was sure that Anya and Luna couldn't care less about her departure – once she had 8 little girls to look after. She would still see them, of course, because her cabin would have activities with them, but it wouldn't be the same. She could say that Octavia knew this was what she'd wanted, and she should be happy for Clarke, but Octavia would just roll her eyes. 

Octavia climbed up to her own bunk, propping herself on the railing so she was now looming over Clarke. "Congratulations, I guess," she said. "But I still think you're crazy for wanting to be with them twenty-four-seven." 

"Thanks," Clarke said. "And maybe I am." She flashed Octavia a smile and a shrug. "Only one way to find out." 

"Did you see Harper before she left?" Octavia asked. 

"For a minute," Clarke said. "I helped her finish loading her stuff into her car. I kind of got the feeling she was in a hurry to get home, though, so we didn't really talk. I told her we would all be thinking about her and sending good thoughts her and her father's way."

"Of course you did," Octavia said, rolling her eyes again. 

"And of course we will," Luna added, shooting Octavia a look. She took in the once orderly piles on Clarke's bunk and gave a small nod that Clarke didn't know how to interpret. She turned away as Luna started to strip out of her damp swimsuit, but turned around when she swore, just in time to get an eyeful of more of Luna than she'd ever had a desire to see. 

"Everything all right?" Clarke asked, quickly turning away again. 

"Water in my ear," Luna said. She went to rummage through one of her drawers, finally coming out with a small bottle. She tipped her head to the side and squeezed a few drops into her ear, massaging it for a few seconds before finishing changing, a task made awkward by the fact that she still had her head tilted parallel to the floor. Finally she grabbed a tissue and held it to her ear before tipping her head the other way. She leaned down again and straightened, sighing with relief. She shook the bottle. "If you don't have any of these, you're going to want them," she told Clarke. "We try to get the kids as they're leaving the beach, but sometimes they escape. Just like some of them decide to skip rinsing off."

"And end up with duck itch," Octavia said. 

"Exactly," Luna said. "You can get a bottle from the nurse's station," she added. "If any of your girls complain about water in their ears, this should get it out, and prevent them from getting swimmer's ear." 

"Thanks," Clarke said, grateful for the advice even if she still wasn't sure how she felt about the source. Of course she knew about the drops from being a camper, but she also knew she hadn't always made sure to get them when she got out of the water, and it hadn't occurred to her that having them on hand in the cabin would be useful. 

Luna nodded. "If you need any help, let me know," she said. 

_Can't wait to get rid of me, can you?_ , Clarke thought, but the more rational side of her pointed out that maybe Luna just wanted to be helpful. If the roles were reversed, would Clarke do the same? And if she did, what would her motivation be? 

Anya was the last one back to the cabin that night, and she went straight to her bunk and crawled under the covers without a word. She didn't even respond to Octavia when she asked her about their plans for the next day, when a fresh crop of campers would arrive to replace those who only came for one session, and when Luna boosted herself up on the edge of her own bunk to say something too quiet for Clarke to hear, Anya just shrugged her off. 

"Who pissed in her Cheerios?" Octavia grumbled. 

"I think it's just been a long day," Luna said. "For everyone." 

Clarke couldn't argue with that. She finished packing up enough stuff to get her through the next few days, until a final decision was made, and went through her bedtime routine. She switched off the light before climbing into her bunk... and then found herself staring at the underside of Octavia's bunk, unable to make out much in the dark but equally unable to close her eyes. Despite Aunt Hannah's directive to get a good night's rest, Clarke wasn't the least bit sleepy. She went over the girls from Bluebird cabin in her head... and felt a surge of joy squeeze her heart when she remembered that Madi was one of them. At least she knew she would have someone on her side from the start. The others might take longer to win over, but she hoped not too long. 

She glanced at her phone, wincing at the brightness of the screen and the time that it showed. She _needed_ to sleep, or tomorrow was going to be even more of an uphill battle. She held her breath and listened, but everyone was quiet and still. As she inched her fingers under her waistband, she realized that after tonight, this particular sleep aid would no longer be an option. The possibility of getting caught by one of the other members of staff was one thing; they might tease her about it but there wouldn't be any real consequences. Getting caught masturbating in a cabin full of elementary schoolers, on the other hand... It wasn't a risk she could take. 

It was probably for the best, anyway, because the more Clarke let herself indulge in fantasy at night, the more it bled into the day, and when she did catch glimpses of Lexa, it was hard not to let those thoughts creep in. Which was the exact opposite of Operation: Ignore Lexa. Or Forget Lexa, or whatever she'd dubbed it. 

So really, this move was exactly what she needed, and there were no downsides as far as she was concerned. Except for the circumstances surrounding how she got it, but that wasn't something she, or anyone, had any control over. But she had one last night before everything changed. She might as well make the most of it.

* * *

When she walked into Bluebird cabin the next morning, nine young faces turned toward her – eight campers and one CIT, Charlotte, who had been coming to camp for a few years, and who Clarke was honestly surprised to see wearing the shirt that designated her a counselor-in-training. She had a history of being a bit difficult to share a cabin with, as she was prone to nightmares that sometimes woke up everyone else before she managed to claw her way out of them. But maybe – hopefully – she'd grown out of it. 

The girls' expressions were a mixture of curiosity, caution, and dejection; Clarke didn't know exactly what they'd been told, but it appeared they were aware that Aunt Harper wasn't coming back. Even Madi looked uncertain, perched on the edge of her bunk like she wanted to charge up to Clarke and wrap her arms around her like she normally did, but wasn't sure whether she could.

"Hey everybody," Clarke said, plastering on a smile. "I guess by now you've heard that Aunt Harper had to leave camp to deal with some things at home." A few nods, and a couple of poked out lips greeted her in response. "As most of you probably remember, I'm Aunt Clarke, and I'm going to be taking over for Aunt Harper."

Madi perked up. "Really?"

"Really," Clarke said. "At least for the next few days, until—" She didn't get to finish as the air was forced from her lungs by Madi crashing into her solar plexus and constricting around her like a boa. "Okay," she wheezed, prying her loose but keeping one arm around her as she tucked herself against Clarke's side. "If anyone has any questions, please let me know, and I appreciate your patience while I get to know all of you, and you get to know me." 

"Is Aunt Harper okay?" one of the girls piped up. "She didn't even say goodbye!" 

"I'm sorry she didn't get a chance to say goodbye," Clarke said. "She wanted to get home as soon as possible, and I'm sure she didn't want to disrupt you while you were doing your activities." 

"But is she _okay_?" the girl persisted. 

"She's okay," Clarke assured her. "She just needs to be home right now."

"Why?"

Clarke pressed her lips together. They'd had a brief, impromptu staff meeting that morning to update everyone on the situation, and they'd been advised to try to keep what they told campers who asked about Aunt Harper simple and straightforward: she needed to go home to deal with some family things and she wouldn't be back this summer. But Clarke had already said that, and it obviously wasn't enough. 

"Did someone die?" another girl asked. "I bet someone died!" She sounded a little too excited at the prospect, and Clarke tried to squash her instant antipathy. She was only a child, after all. Empathy was a work in progress. (But then, sociopathy could be, too...) 

"No one died," Clarke said. "I know that you miss her. I'm going to miss her too. But—"

"I heard it was her dad," someone piped up. 

"Her dad died?!"

"No one died," Clarke repeated. "Girls, we need to respect Aunt Harper's privacy, okay? She wanted you all to know that she really loved being your counselor and she wishes she could stay, but unfortunately, they need her at home even more than you need her here. She's going to miss you all so much, but she hopes that you all have an awesome rest of the summer." Harper hadn't actually said any of that, and Clarke didn't know if it was true, but she hoped it would get them to calm down and stop asking questions she couldn't answer, and creating or spreading rumors. 

"Can we write to her?" Charlotte asked. "Maybe we could make her a card and Aunt Hannah can send it to her." 

"That's a great idea, Charlotte," Clarke said, smiling at her, grateful for her timely intervention and disappointed in herself that she hadn't thought of it first. "We can go to the Arts & Crafts cabin and you can make your own cards for her, or one big card, and I will make sure that it gets to her." 

Which also allowed her to take some time to get set up for this afternoon's new arrivals while keeping an eye on the girls. She would really need to thank Charlotte later. 

"Do we have to?" the budding sociopath grumbled. "Cards are stupid."

" _You're_ stupid," Madi snapped. 

"Hey," Clarke said. "We don't call each other stupid."

"What about dumb?" Madi asked. "Can I call her dumb? Or Meanie McRudeface?"

"No," Clarke said. "You can't call her any of those things." 

"Fine," Madi said. "Then I'm not going to call her anything at all because if you don't have anything nice to say you shouldn't say anything at all, and I do _not_ have anything nice to say. _At. All._ " 

"That's fine," Clarke said. "Everyone finish cleaning up and find your shoes, and let's go." 

Which turned out to not be nearly as simple a process as it ought to have been, mostly because Meanie McRudeface seemed to think it was her responsibility to boss around the other girls rather than cleaning up her own mess, while Clarke kept herself physically between Madi and Meanie (and she was going to have to stop calling her that, even in her own head, or it was going to come out of her mouth sooner rather than later) so that blood wasn't added to the mess, and Charlotte quietly assured the girls that they were doing fine, they didn't need to listen, look, your barrette is right there, whose towel is this?, etc. 

By the time they made it to the A&C cabin, everyone was frazzled, and she let them spread out over all the tables even though it made prepping more difficult for her, because she knew that everyone needed a little space and room to breathe. At least they were quiet while they worked; the only sounds the movement of crayons and markers over paper and the occasional soft inquiry as to whether someone had a particular color or could they pass the scissors please? 

They were just finishing up when someone poked their head into the tent and cleared their throat. Clarke looked up from sorting through name tags and felt her heart lurch when she saw it was Lexa. "Can I help you?" she asked. 

"I'm actually here to help you," Lexa said. "Aunt Hannah suggested that the Bluebirds could join the Robins for the afternoon while you're in here." 

_Of course she did,_ Clarke thought. _She could have picked anyone, but of course she picked Lexa._ But really, it made sense. The campers in both cabins were the same age, and many of them were friends by this point. It was the simplest solution. "Right," Clarke said. "That's great. Thanks." 

"Just send them out when you're ready," Lexa said, and disappeared. 

Meanie was out of her seat instantly, leaving her mess behind her. Madi scowled and moved to clean it up, but Clarke shook her head. "I'll get it," she said. "I bet your friend Adria is waiting for you."

Madi looked up at her, looking like she might argue, but then she just threw her arms around Clarke, pressing her face into her chest. "I'm glad it's you," she said.

Clarke stroked her hair where it had frizzed out of her braids. "I'm glad it's you, too," she said. "I'll see you at dinner." 

Madi beamed. "I'll save you a seat."


	8. Chapter 8

Lexa did a quick head count to make sure she had all of her campers, and all of Clarke's as well. She looked to Tris and... Charlotte, that was the Bluebirds' CIT... and they both nodded, confirming that everyone was present and accounted for. "Okay, everyone," she said. "We're going to head down the beach. If anyone wants to retake their swimming test, this is your chance. If not, you are welcome to stay on shore, or I think Uncle Lincoln is going to be taking a group out in kayaks and canoes if you're interested." 

"I'm not," one of the Bluebirds said. "This is stupid."

"You're—" one of the other Bluebirds – Adria's friend Madi – started to say, but stopped when Charlotte gave her a look. She scrunched up her face (and her hands into fists) and clamped her mouth shut. 

"I'm sorry you feel that way," Lexa said. "But it's what we're doing, and you're required to be where the rest of your group is whether you participate or not." She did her best to smile, and got only a scowl in return. "Let's go. Lu—Aunt Luna's waiting." 

They made it down to the beach, no thanks to the Bluebird with the bad attitude, who dragged her feet the entire way, and a few of the girls stripped down to their bathing suits and trooped down to the water to retake their tests. A few others joined Uncle Lincoln on a short boating excursion, and the rest found a volleyball and began hitting it back and forth over the net. Lexa was pretty sure the rules of the game were whatever they made up at the moment, but they were having a good time so she didn't see any reason to get involved.

Only the girl who thought this was all stupid didn't participate. She sat on one of the logs that surrounded the firepit, her arms crossed and her chin jutted out, making herself as unapproachable as possible. Lexa approached anyway, sitting next to her. "It's Kayley, right?" she asked.

" _Wrong_ ," the girl snapped. "It's Keighleigh. K-E-I-G-H-L-E-I-G-H. KEE. LEE." 

It took every ounce of Lexa's willpower not to roll her eyes. "Sorry about that," she said. "I'm Aunt Lexa."

"Yeah," Keighleigh said, not bothering to not roll her eyes. "I know. You're wearing a nametag?" 

Lexa tugged at the string around her neck. She'd put it on that morning to help the new campers arriving, even though she wouldn't be responsible for them, and forgotten about it. "Right," she said, forcing a smile. "Seems like you're having a little bit of a tough day. Do you want to talk about it?"

"Uh, no," Keighleigh said, like this was the stupidest thing she'd ever heard. "My day would be just fine if people would just leave me alone and stop asking me to stupid questions and trying to make me do stupid activities." 

"Activities are kind of the point of camp," Lexa reminded her. "It's pretty much why we're here."

"Well _maybe_ some of us don't _want_ to be here," Keighleigh said. " _Maybe_ some of us got forced to come here because it's where their parents went instead of going to a _nice_ camp with their actual _friends_. A camp with a _swimming pool_ instead of a disgusting lake, and _horses_ and _air conditioning_ and a _movie theater_ and—"

Lexa tuned out. She'd gotten the point. "Maybe next summer," she said when Keighleigh finally paused for breath, and pushed herself up to go check in with the girls coming out of the water, some of them elated and a few dejected. "Maybe next time," she told one of her campers who was still a Minnow. 

Her lip trembled as she pushed her wet head into Lexa's chest. "I've been _trying_ and _trying_ she said. "It's not _fair_."

"I know," Lexa said, wrapping her up in her towel and rubbing her arms. "But you have friends who are still in Minnow, too," she pointed out. "You're not alone." 

"I know," she pouted. "I guess I'll just have to try harder." 

"You can do it," Lexa said, tapping her nose. "Now let's gather everyone up and go get changed into dry clothes for lunch."

* * *

After lunch, which Clarke joined them for but stayed at the other end of the table, as far away from Lexa as she could get, the new campers started to arrive. They were still required to do the camp tour, even though they already knew their way around, but most of the counselors had prepared activities for them so they wouldn't get restless and bored. In the Arts & Crafts cabin, they were allowed to make new nametags if they wanted to (they would be required to wear them for the first day that the new campers were there) or they could work on lanyards. Most of the girls opted for lanyards, which meant cutting yards and yards of plastic string, which would probably never actually get turned into anything. On the beach they got a refresher on water and boat safety. At the nurse's cabin they got reminders about wearing sunscreen and bugspray, eardrops and a shower after going in the water, and how to recognize poison ivy. Everything was going smoothly (even with Keighleigh's constant sighs and grumbling) until they got to the athletic field.

"All right, everyone!" Anya said, keeping her eyes firming focused on the girls and not on Lexa. "Since I know you don't need to hear about the different activities we go, I thought we could play a quick game of kickball."

"Uh, no thanks," Keighleigh said. "Kickball is for losers."

"Sorry," Anya said. "It's not optional." She divided the campers into two teams, lining one group up to kick and the others racing out to take the field. Keighleigh tried to head as far out into the field as possible, where there was no chance of the ball coming anywhere near her, but Octavia herded her back in. 

Madi was up first for her team, and when the ball came bouncing her way, she swung her leg back and kicked it as hard as she could. It launched off her foot with a satisfying _pong!_ and sailed out into the field... and straight into Keighleigh's chest, because she hadn't been paying attention and hadn't moved out of the way. 

"Yes!" Madi shouted, throwing her arms up in victory, and took off for first base. She was headed for second when it became clear that Keighleigh wasn't getting up, and Anya stopped her run at second base, then trotted over to check on the fallen girl.

Lexa jogged over to join her, trusting that the CITs would keep an eye on the girls while they made sure that Keighleigh wasn't actually injured. By the time she got over, though, it was clear that the girl was going to milk this for all it was worth. Lexa was sure she'd gotten the wind knocked out of her, and that was never fun, but she was complaining that she couldn't breathe and how she thought maybe her ribs were broken and how she was going to call her parents and they were going to sue and Lexa wondered how she was able to keep going on and on if she was having such a hard time inflating her lungs. 

Finally they got her up on her feet, and Octavia walked with her to the nurse's station to be checked out. Madi looked disgusted. "I didn't hit her _that_ hard," she said. "Anyway, she's lucky. I was aiming for her _head_." 

Lexa detoured back toward her. "You kicked it toward her on purpose?" she asked. 

"She could have caught it!" Madi said. "Or moved out of the way! Anyway, she deserved it! She called us losers!" 

Lexa frowned. "It's not nice to try to hurt people," she said. "Even when they're not being nice themselves." 

Madi scowled. "I know. But at least now we don't have to listen to her complain about everything all day." 

Lexa pressed her lips together, because she couldn't agree with Madi, no matter how much she wanted to. She didn't envy Clarke having to deal with Keighleigh's attitude all day, every day, for the next six weeks, that was for sure. "I think maybe you need to sit the rest of the game out," she said. 

"But I should have got a home run!" Madi said. 

"And you should also be in trouble for intentionally trying to injure one of your fellow campers," Lexa pointed out. "I think this is a fair compromise." 

Madi sulked, but followed Lexa off the field, and the game resumed with one fewer player on each team, until it was time for them to move on to the next area. Thankfully, there were no more problems... in no small part because Keighleigh stayed in the nurse's cabin for the rest of the afternoon.

They met up with Clarke again at dinner, and Lexa saw a frown forming on Clarke's face as she counted her campers and found one missing. Her stomach did a flip, realizing that Clarke would almost certainly blame her for what had happened, and it would just fuel her hatred. 

_Except is that really what it is?_

The voice in her head sounded more than a little like Luna, and Lexa tried to push the thought away, because with it was the memory of Anya's recording, and Clarke's voice moaning her name in a tone that was anything but hateful, and—

"Where's Me—" Clarke stopped herself. "Where's Keighleigh?" she asked, and when had she gotten so close and how had Lexa not noticed?

"Nurse," Lexa said, feeling her cheeks heat up. "There was a, uh, there was an incident. During kickball. She got hit with the ball and needed to go to the nurse."

"Is she okay?" Clarke asked. 

"I don't know," Lexa said. "I haven't checked."

Clarke's eyes narrowed. "Isn't that—" But she cut herself off again. "Thanks," she said. "I'll go check on her." But she didn't need to, because Keighleigh had finally reappeared, looking even more pouty and spiteful than before. She headed straight for Madi, and Clarke and Lexa bumped into each other as they moved to intercept them before anything could happen. Clarke glared, and Lexa backed off, turning her attention to her own campers. The Bluebirds weren't her problem anymore. 

That evening there was another campfire, and Lexa was glad the Robins were on the beach again... even though the Bluebirds were, too. The beach meant Luna, and Luna meant...

She didn't know what Luna meant. Luna used to mean comfort, but after what had almost happened the day before, she didn't know if she would find it anymore, or if she had any right to ask for it. She was the one who'd broken Luna's heart, after all, and maybe she still did sometimes. Just because Lexa had fallen out of love, or maybe never been in it in the first place, didn't mean Luna had, and hearing what she'd heard... more than once, if Lexa understood correctly...

"Rough day?" Luna asked, appearing at Lexa's side as if summoned by her thoughts. 

Lexa nodded. "Turns out doubling the number of campers you have to keep an eye on also doubles the potential for trouble," she said. 

"Now imagine how I feel," Luna said, flashing a smile, and Lexa couldn't help it. She burst into tears. 

"Hey," Luna said softly, "Lex..." Her arm slid around Lexa, and Lexa tried to shrug her off but she just dug her fingers into Lexa's shoulder, and after a quick look to make sure her campers were properly supervised (and if Clarke wasn't keeping an eye on them after Lexa had done so for hers all day...) she led Lexa away from the fire, off into the shadows where it was cooler. 

"I'm sorry," Lexa said, and she didn't mean for crying, although that too. Luna shouldn't have to deal with her emotional overload; it wasn't her responsibility. "Luna, I'm sorry. You should—shouldn't—" She shook her head, brushing at her eyes. "I'm okay."

"Clearly you're not," Luna said. "Talk to me."

Lexa shook her head again. "You don't have to take care of me," she said. "You're not my—"

"Friend?" Luna interjected. "Because this is what friends do. They look out for each other." 

Lexa laughed, but it was bitter. "When have I ever looked out for you?"

Luna's eyebrows went up. "Are you serious?" she asked, when it became clear that Lexa's question wasn't rhetorical. "When my brother died, you were there for me. When my parents couldn't stop fighting, you brought me here. You were the only person I knew wouldn't run for the hills if I showed my anger or if I fell apart. When it felt like life was only darkness, you were there to remind me that someday, eventually, there would be light again. And there was."

"And then I snuffed it out again," Lexa said. "I told you I loved you, and then—"

"You weren't lying," Luna said. "Don't say it was all a lie, because it wasn't. It isn't. Maybe it wasn't what you thought it was, maybe it wasn't forever, but it was _real_ , Lexa, while it lasted. Wasn't it?"

"Of course it was!" Lexa said. "But—"

"But things changing doesn't negate what was," Luna said. Her dark eyes locked with Lexa's. "Did it hurt? Yes. Did I wish it could be different? Yes. Does it still hurt sometimes? Yes. But there's no going back, so..." She shrugged. "The only way out is through."

"It just feels wrong," Lexa said. "I'm upset because everything with Clarke is such a mess, and I can't talk to you about it, because—"

"Why not?" Luna asked. 

"Because I don't want to hurt you more than I already have," Lexa said. 

Luna leaned forward until her forehead rested against Lexa's. "Let me decide that," she said. "Let me decide if it hurts too much." 

Lexa sighed. "I don't deserve you," she whispered. "I never did."

Luna's forehead rocked against hers. "Don't do that," she said. "It puts me in a position where I have to reassure you, to comfort you for the pain we both felt." 

Lexa blinked. She hadn't thought of that. She opened her mouth to apologize, but wondered if that was basically the same thing. If she said she was sorry, Luna would have to say it was okay, and it wasn't. Except Luna didn't have to say it if she didn't want to. It was possible to accept an apology without offering absolution. 

"You're right," Lexa said. "I'm sorry. I'll be more careful about what I say – how I say things – in the future."

"Thank you," Luna said. 

And again, just for a second, she felt that old familiar flutter in her belly, and in her chest, but giving in would do more harm than good. A second's respite from the turmoil that was Clarke fucking Griffin wasn't worth breaking the heart of her best friend again. 

She pulled Luna into a hug instead, tucking her head into the crook of her neck. "I hope you find someone who loves you as much as I do, in all the ways you want them to," she said softly. "I want you to have that."

"I hope you do too," Luna said. "Don't give up hope."

But not giving up hope implied she'd had hope in the first place, and she hadn't... had she? Had she really been holding out hope all this time that one of these days, Clarke would look at her and see her - _really_ see her, not whatever version of her she'd constructed in her head – and realize that she actually liked – more than liked – her and they would live happily ever after?

_Not likely._

Even if Clarke did suddenly reciprocate Lexa's feelings (and what Lexa had heard on Anya's phone didn't actually prove anything), what future did they have? They only saw each other eight weeks out of the year, and then went back to their separate lives, which had been hours apart on opposite sides of the state, but now that they had graduated... Lexa assumed Clarke was going to college, but she had no idea where. It was entirely possible they would be attending schools on opposite sides of the country, or close enough to that having any kind of relationship would be a logistical nightmare. 

What was the point?

Better to let it go and focus on the future. The perfect girl might be out there waiting for her. They could bump into each other on campus – literally, because they both had their heads down staring at their campus maps trying to figure out where their class was – or laugh over how ridiculous some of the orientation icebreakers were, or sit next to each other in some giant seminar room and pass notes back and forth about how boring their professor was, or... There were as many possible scenarios as there were cheesy romantic comedies.

_And you would end up blowing every single one of them, because even if you didn't want to, you would end up comparing this imaginary dream girl to Clarke, and never really giving her a chance. You would spend your life thinking about the One That Got Away, and all of the 'what if's and 'if only's that come with her._

But what was the alternative? It wasn't as if she could just pin Clarke against a wall and tell her she knew what Clarke did at night when she thought everyone else was asleep. She couldn't force her to admit that it was Lexa's name on her lips when got herself off. Clarke _hated_ her. She always had. She always would. 

Hell, maybe she even got off on that.

Life would have been so much simpler if she could have just given her heart to Luna, who would never break it if she could help it.

"We should get back," Lexa said finally, slipping out of her best friend's embrace. "Before anyone notices we're gone."

"And by anyone, you mean Clarke," Luna teased, and how could she do that? She'd just said that it still hurt, sometimes, knowing Lexa was in love with Clarke rather than her. How could she joke about it? 

Lexa was usually pretty good at keeping a poker face, but it failed her now, and Luna knew her too well, and her smile flickered and faded. "If I don't laugh, I'll cry," she said with a shrug. "Anyway, it'll be easier to move on when I know you are, too."

Lexa looked at her, her forehead furrowing. "Is there something you're not telling me?" she asked. 

Luna's lips quirked in her best enigmatic smile. "Wouldn't you like to know?" 

"Yes!" Lexa said. "That's why I asked!" 

Luna laughed. "I thought you wanted to get back."

"I _need_ to get back," Lexa said. "Want and need aren't the same thing."

"Truer words," Luna said. "And maybe it's something. Maybe it's nothing." She shrugged. "We'll have to wait and see."

Lexa groaned. "Seriously? That's all you're going to tell me?"

Luna held up her hands. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours," she said. 

"You've already seen mine!" Lexa said. 

"Show me something new, then," Luna said. 

"There's nothing to show and you know it," Lexa said. "There's never going to be." 

"That's up to you," Luna said, and leaned in to brush her lips quickly against Lexa's cheek before darting back into the circle of light from the fire. 

Lexa groaned, scrubbing her hands over her face, and followed her, finding her campers and going to join them even though it put her way too close to Clarke. Clarke glanced over at her, and Lexa forced herself to meet her eyes and hold them, and then they were locked in a staring contest that neither of them was willing to lose.

It ended when one of Lexa's campers stood up directly in their line of sight and turned to hiss loudly that she needed to go to the bathroom and yes, it was an emergency. Lexa found Tris and tapped her shoulder, and Tris bounced up to take the camper to the Mess Hall, which was the closest bathroom to the beach. When she looked back, Clarke was talking to one of her own campers, looking pleased with herself. 

Did she think she'd won? Neither of them had looked away. Did she assume that because it was one of Lexa's campers that had interrupted, that gave her the victory? If it had been one of her own campers, would she accept defeat? 

It was childish and petty and it made Lexa's blood boil... especially between her thighs. She looked quickly away, and was grateful when one of the senior counselors declared that this would be the last song, and then it was off to bed. 

It seemed to take twice as long as usual to get the girls settled that night, and Lexa was exhausted by the time she dropped into her bed... but sleep didn't come... because Lexa didn't – couldn't – and it was all she could think about.

Her only consolation, as she tossed and turned in frustration, was that tonight, Clarke couldn't either.


End file.
